Medicinal Violence
by RedHammer
Summary: The worst part about waking up after a snarling bare-knuckle fight with your best friend is waking up in the same medbay.
1. Chapter 1

Specialist Traynor regarded the coffee pot glumly. There was never a fresh pot on when her night-cycle shift was over, and whatever they did have wasn't exactly Presidium quality. She'd listened to Joker's tales from the days of Cerberus employment in wonder (and a tiny sliver of envy). They'd made the Normandy sound like a pleasure cruiser rather than a fully kitted warship, though Joker was always keen to stress that the _only_ good thing about Cerberus was their money. While she had more technical and scientific resources at her fingertips than she could ever dream of back in her colony labs, the Alliance wasn't quite so free with their personal luxuries budget.

Which, unfortunately, extended to the quality of the coffee. She eyed the bubbling dark mud with suspicion, already tasting the stale bitterness. Switching off the percolator, she pulled the kettle out of a cupboard, deciding on a cup of good old tea instead. If there was one thing her Mum could be relied on for, it was keeping her daughter well-stocked in the necessities.

Only Dr. Chakwas and the commander seemed to make use of it as regularly as herself. In the thirty seconds Shepard allocated herself for food and drink every day, she usually spent it on cup of boiling Darjeeling.

As Traynor began the comforting ritual of brewing, she despaired on how to make her commander give more time to herself. Despite knowing her so little compared to others on the crew, there was a downshift in her spirits of late that even she had noticed. Like a leech had attached somewhere and was sucking the colour out of her personality.

Of course, everyone on board could be glum these days. But Joker still cracked jokes. She'd seen Lieutenant Vega and Officer Vakarian exchanging war stories in the mess. Even Dr. T'Soni could be coaxed into the lounge on occasion by the quarian girl. It was a tough battle they were fighting, but they still seemed to balance the needs of the mission with their own.

But something vital, some life spark had faded out of the hero, to anyone who cared to put the pieces together.

Even her external appearance changed to reflect a shift somewhere. Before, she'd worn an N7 jumper on deck, looking for all the world like a woman walking around her home on a day off work.

Now, it was armour or sharply pressed dress blues, around the clock.

Traynor took a long draught of her tea. She sloshed the lukewarm dregs with a sigh. She didn't have the first clue how to convince Shepard that she was going to put herself out of commission if she kept this up, and then where would they be? They might as well roll out the red carpet for the Reapers if they lost her. But working with _the_ icon of the human military for a few months was not nearly enough time to know how to tactfully remind her she was still, well, human.

Her tea was finished, a pattern of sweet smelling leaves sticking to the bottom of the cup. She raised it to her nose – and saw Dr. Chakwas darting about her office through the mess window. The elderly medic was gathering up a bundle, her quick hands flying over her supplies. She wasn't quite flustered, but she was in an awful hurry. A lead weight dropped into Traynor's stomach – the commander was due back shipside about now. The Normandy ground team had been defending evacuation ships on the elcor homeworld, helping refugees. Had something gone wrong?

She made her way to the door of the medbay.

"Doctor? Has something happened?" Traynor kept a firm grip on the spiking fear threatening to creep into her voice.

Chakwas looked up but didn't pause stuffing a roll of sterilized suture thread into a field bag. She had the 'medical zen' expression, as Traynor called it. The face of a doctor who'd gone into a mode of calm even surrounded by dangling limbs or exploding shells. It did not comfort her to see.

"Is it Shepard? One of the officers? This assignment was supposed to be a dawdle- "

Chakwas held up a hand to interrupt her. "The mission was a success, they're all back on board. This is just a precaution." Traynor watched her rifle through a drawer full of pre-filled epinephrine needles, and pick out four. Two levo-amino, two dextro-amino.

"Doctor, precaution for what?" Traynor asked in confusion. "What the bloody hell is going on?"

The doctor sighed, zipping her bag shut. "You'd better come with me. They're at it again."

* * *

><p>Shepard spat out a mouthful of blood. There was a faint ringing in her ears that seemed to be getting louder. It matched the red haze in front of her eyes.<p>

"I'll break that jaw with the next one, human," her opponent snarled.

"If you get close enough you'll lose something you'll miss, lizard." Shepard's arms came back up in a close, high guard as they started to circle again. Both their chests were heaving. Their eyes darted from from feet to hands, mirroring positioning with care, waiting for the other to expose a soft spot. Two hunters, sizing up their prey. The agitated sounds from their onlookers had faded to nothing as the field of her senses narrowed.

His guard stayed low and loose, a subtle turian insult. If you didn't think your enemy was worthy, you didn't bother to raise your claws. She breathed deep, shoring up her anger into a tool to make her sharp and strong. She'd take that slight out of his hide. He was going to be a broken wreck of an alien by the time she was done.

She feinted a minor stumble, baiting him. He waded in with a left hook, easily dodged with a forearm and a quick sidestep. She used his forward momentum to bring her knee hard into his solar plexus, earning a heavy grunt. Too late though, she realised her mistake; he'd already clamped both hands on the back of her bodysuit. Even through two layers of reinforced neoprene, his talons were hooking into her skin like tiny pincers.

She made two desperate jabs with her elbow into the space where arm met torso, hoping to loosen his grip. One blow skittered off, the other found flesh and sunk home into connective tissue. She went deep, using her other arm to push down on her fist. He roared in pain. But his hands stayed tight and she winced as she was lifted and thrown as easily as she'd seen him throw his cases of spare ammo on the battlefield.

Shepard had only a split second to turn and lead with her shoulder instead of her forehead before she landed in the salvage crates with a deafening crash. They disintegrated into shards of plexiglass, pouches of field rations tumbling to the ground. An excruciating agony bloomed across her collarbone, and she knew she'd fractured something.

It only made her angrier.

"Will you listen now? Do you really want me to lose my temper?" To her satisfaction, his voice was wheezing, liked he'd been kicked in the chest by a mule. She shook off the wisps of a blackout that had threatened with the pain. Sharp edges on the crates sliced her hands and stomach as she dragged herself out of the debris, new trails of blood joining the rest already drying on the floor.

"You think that scares me? You're not the first rabid dog I've put down," she gasped out between whistling breaths. She gripped her injured shoulder, willing the pain back behind the veil of rage currently clogging her senses.

She felt drunk with fury. It was amazing. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd truly lost control. Absolutely nothing penetrated the thick shroud beyond 'put him through the floor'. She was drowning in that one thought, and it felt like an impossible luxury. A vacation in her own head. She grinned, teeth bloody and sweat stinging her eyes, her pain fading away.

His face was a dangerous mask, eyes glinting with something feral. His jaw and mandibles were open, showing his pointed teeth. If the aliens from old human horror vids had a name, it was turian.

He was advancing on her with a speed and purpose that would make most humans run for a bunker. Even she had to fight a jolt that came courtesy of a military that had made its name fighting these particular aliens. When you saw a big one closing in on you, you ran. No sane soldier risked hand-to-hand with a turian if there was an option to flee.

Luckily, she didn't feel at all sane right now.

Eyes, throat, knees, spurs. She could hear her father counting them off, as though she was fifteen again and back in front of that dummy on the CIC of the _Calcutta_. If they ever got you in melee range; eyes, throat, knees, spurs.

She dropped as he came in range and swept for the knee, twisting out of the way of a blow heading straight for her nose. But he'd clearly been expecting it and let the punch drift, his eyes down instead of watching where his fist landed. His foot lifted clear and her ankle smacked harmlessly into his other calf. When it came back down, it pinned her leg to the floor.

"Alliance. You all fight the damn same -"

Shepard rolled up, forcing herself into a sitting position. His mandibles tightened in surprise; he'd clearly forgotten about the rotational capacity of the human hipbone. She was tempted to laugh even as her thigh muscle burned with pain, contorting at an odd angle.

In a flash, she had snaked both arms behind him and gripped his spurs. Then she pulled until she was almost back on the floor, using her bodyweight like she was in a rowing machine.

She gritted her teeth, feeling sweaty hands slide on his skin. Her blunt nails dug deep for purchase as a claw began sailing towards her throat. Her biceps tightened as she wrenched with her complete strength. After a moment of resistance, the tension peaked. There were two thick, satisfying snaps and her hands slipped free. Garrus threw his head back and screamed in two tones.

Eyes, throat, knees, spurs. Four points on the turian anatomy that will disable even the most bloodthirsty veterans. However, living long enough to enjoy your victory was another matter.

She knew he had strength and stamina on his side. She wouldn't win a battle of attrition. If this didn't bring him down, she was in trouble.

To her dismay, he didn't even stumble. His weight shifted and before she could blink, a foot was in the middle of her chest, putting her flat so fast the back of her skull bounced off the shuttle bay concrete. Thrashing her legs, she attempted to find a throwhold somewhere on his slippery, skin-tight undersuit. When that failed, she drew a knee back and kicked squarely at his groin. On a human, a kick that hard in that place would have ended their brawl immediately. Garrus only staggered, hissing in continuous pain but still upright.

The pressure began to increase and she gasped, feeling her spine click. _Yeah, definitely in trouble_. He leaned over, his face blanked out by the bright lights above his head. She had another flash of gut-churning premonition, and bucked like a mad varren to dislodge him enough to give herself a window to roll out. But he was too strong, and it was too late. His foot moved backwards, talons raking her bodysuit, and he dropped to his knee. Two hundred kilos of bone, carapace and muscle drove down on her chest, cracking her sternum and what felt like a handful of ribs.

Shepard couldn't breathe. Too much agony. Too much weight. He might as well have slid a few knives into her ribcage. One of his talons gripped her injured shoulder and squeezed mercilessly. Now it was her turn to scream, though the lack of air made it soundless. Her lungs felt like deflated balloons. She turned and sank her teeth into the tensed sinew of his wrist, tearing a chunk away with a flick of the head. Dots began speckling her vision, and she barely registered the heavy blows to the jaw that left her teeth loose.

_Concentrate, Shepard, or this is all over._ She kneed him in the spine with all the strength she could muster, forcing him forward and off balance. Pressing the brief advantage, she sent an uppercut into the softer flesh under his chin that actually connected. His reaction time was starting to slow. Another hit caved his windpipe. While he tried to pinion her arm, she followed with a wild haymaker aimed at his mandible. It shattered under her fist with a dull crunch, changing direction in two different places. He recovered almost immediately, whipping his head around to close his teeth over her hand. She pulled away just in time, and his teeth clicked on empty air. His mangled face now started to run with blue blood, and she smiled.

"I think you lost your temper, you scaly asshole," she managed to gasp.

"Barefaced pyjak bitch, I'll bleed you dry -" but his eyes were rolling into his head even as he spoke.

And then, she blacked out.

* * *

><p>When she woke up, it was to the steady beep of the monitors in the sickbay. She could feel the burn of a bright spotlight behind her eyelids, and opted to keep them closed. A rustle and the gentle brush of hands covered by sterile gloves told her someone was working further down her body.<p>

Pain filtered in, like a glass stuck under a tap until it overflowed. She hurt. Down to the bone. There were aches in places she didn't even realise she had muscles, let alone been hit. Running a fast self-assessment, she realised the pain was definitely the worst in her chest and one of her collarbones, but it wasn't the white-hot spiking jolts she'd felt before. This was more of a day-after pain. Less intense, but far more agonising now there was no adrenaline saturating her blood.

She groaned and shifted slightly, which seemed to catch the attention of whoever was working on her torso.

"Hold still. You've got a few stitches left."

"Hurts." Shepard's tongue felt thick and unwieldy. "Hurts so much, Chakwas." Her voice was a gravelly whisper.

"I know. I gave you both the bare minimum of anaesthetic."

"Wha... medi-gel?"

"Only on sites at risk of infection." There was something very clipped about the doctor's tone. Shepard winced as the suture needle pinched her again. "You two behaved like complete animals. You can be treated like animals."

Shepard felt a surge of pain entirely unrelated to physical wounds. She reached down the bed awkwardly, grasping at the doctor's sleeve. "Chakwas..."

"I've seen soldiers -" the needle went down "- in dozens of sparring matches." The needle came back up. "But nothing like this. I have never seen such a - a sickening display between military personnel. Between two commanding officers, no less!" Shepard heard a clatter, like forceps being thrown in a bowl.

"How could you put yourselves at such risk? How much peril would our mission be in if you two had thrown your lives away on the floor of the shuttle bay?" The doctor's words were part accusation, part shock. Cracking her eyelids, Shepard saw the tight lines in the jaw that seemed to age her medic's face by years. She had no good answer to give.

"Well! You can have a day or two lying in pain to think about it," Chakwas said, every inch the reproachful school marm. The doctor snipped off her thread and pulled down the gown which Shepard realised had been folded up near her chest.

After washing her hands, Chakwas picked up another shallow tub filled with sundry medical items and crossed the room. Shepard followed with her eyes, the only parts that felt up to moving, and finally noticed the room's second patient.

His eyes weren't open. His breathing seemed very shallow, and the mandible was still stuck out from his face at a unnatural angle.

Chakwas, however, had no mercy. "I'm going to reset your mandible now, Garrus. I've given you another shot for the pain but we have to do it now."

He nodded, barely. Both talons were gripping the side of the bed hard enough that Shepard could see the plates in his upper arm shifting under the neoprene. The doctor finished pulling on her gloves, coded powder blue for dextro work. She bent over him and narrowed her eyes, dragging up a spotlight overhead to focus on his mangled face. Now Shepard could see the drying blue blood running in a thick swathe from his face to chest.

"You're lucky. There are two clean breaks, you won't need surgery. But I'm afraid I have to realign the rotator joint once they're straightened."

Garrus raised his head, seemed to be trying to form a word. His breath was tiny, rapid sips of air.

"No, don't speak. Just lay as still as you can." The doctor placed one hand under and over the length of his mandible. "You know how this goes. Breathe through it, don't bite your tongue. On the count of three, Garrus."

He made a low keening sound deep in his chest. The deathgrip he had on the mattress redoubled.

There were words tumbling over each other in Shepard's brain, something like _stop_ but they refused to surface, tripping up somewhere en route to her vocal cords.

"One, two, three- " There were two dull pops. Shepard saw Garrus' eyes roll. "And one more," the doctor said calmly over the pain-filled trills and hums now filling the room. There was a third pop. Shepard fought down a brief, violent wave of nausea.

"All done." With an efficiency born of practice, Chakwas bound a small splint and a bandage limned with medi-gel to the side of his jaw. She had daubed off the worst of the blood in the time it took for Shepard to get her stomach under control.

The doctor stripped off her gloves and seemed to be on the brink of delivering a lecture similar to the one she'd just given the commander, but another look at the state of her more recent patient seemed to change her mind. She settled for shaking her head with a heavy sigh as she washed and dried her hands.

"Keep an eye on them, EDI. I've had enough of this pair for today." She paused, glancing out the medbay window. "And no visitors without my express permission. Blank the windows."

"Yes, Dr. Chakwas." Even EDI's dulcet tones seemed meeker than usual.

The doctor gave Shepard another bitter glance before buzzing open the door and dimming the lights. Shepard could only watch her go, all her explanations buried under the shroud of fuzzy wool enveloping her thoughts. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the expressions on the faces she'd glimpsed peering inside their little white room, before EDI had opaqued the glass.

A grey silence fell. She had nothing to listen to except her own breathing. The subharmonic hums coming from the bed a few metres away had died out. There were dark thoughts starting to turn over in her head, like the staccato reps of a heat sink in the barrel. She could hear their rumbling like the approach of a storm.

_Shape up, marine._ Shepard chided herself. There was a hell of a lot of work still to be done, she had no time for laying flat and brooding. Experimentally, she began flexing muscle sets in her legs from the feet upwards. The calf that had been pinned to the floor twinged but it was nothing she couldn't handle. Maybe she could stand up, find where Chakwas kept the morphine, and get to the comm room in time to give Hackett a report before he heard of the day's events from elsewhere. She braced her hands, gritted her teeth, and attempted to sit up.

Frissons of electric agony ran in an arc from her collarbone down across her ribs. Streaks of fire unrolled through her chest. She choked and cursed involuntarily, falling back the minute distance she'd risen. Engaging any muscles in her core made her feel like she was taking one of Jack's shockwaves at point blank range. Even breathing suddenly became an immense labour of pain and effort.

That damn doctor. She'd pinned her to this bed as surely as if she'd strapped her in.

"Commander Shepard, Dr. Chakwas wishes me to remind you that any excess movement is not advised. You are not heavily medicated for your injuries. Your bones require a period of rest to allow the nanites in your bloodstream to repair them to full function."

"Thanks, EDI." Shepard gasped through clenched teeth.

"I have already updated Admiral Hackett on the success of today's assignment - and your current indisposition." It was still tricky to parse the AI's nuances in speech, but right now she sounded downright pleased with herself. "Specialist Traynor and I have already agreed to share your administrative duties until you are recovered."

Shepard couldn't work up the energy to groan. But she had to be sure of something. "EDI, did you tell - " she paused to hiss with pain, "- the Admiral how I got injured?"

"I told him there was a brief disagreement between yourself and Officer Vakarian. I did not inform him of specific details."

Shepard closed her eyes. "That will be all," she managed to get out, struggling to raise her voice above a wheeze.

"Logging you out, Shepard."

She swore again, quietly. She'd better start writing her tribunal speech now, in case by some miracle Earth survived long enough for them to hold it. EDI might have thought she'd covered her tracks, but Shepard knew damn well the Admiral could add up two and two, and she doubted it had been so long since he'd commanded a squad that he'd forgotten what a 'brief disagreement' followed by a hospital visit actually meant. A Commander and her XO breaking each other's bones onboard, in full view of crewmembers? If it was some other pair of officers she'd be shipping them to the nearest brig.

There was a panel pulled off on one corner of the ceiling, where someone had been working on wiring repairs until they'd been interrupted by their unscheduled arrival. She watched the thick tubes glow and dim rhythmically with the surges of the drive core, wondering how the hell she was going to live through the conference call with Anderson for this one. The man living in the blood-soaked trenches finding out she'd potentially put back the cause by god-knows how long, all because she buckled in the field today and threw a tantrum about it.

She exhaled slowly into the silence. "I'm Commander Shepard, and I'm the biggest fool in the Alliance," she whispered.

"You are, sometimes."

Shepard stiffened. She'd assumed he'd been passed out.

"But not for the reason you're thinking of right now. You think there's any military in the galaxy that would court-martial you less than a week after you killed a Reaper on Rannoch, right after reuniting the quarians and geth?" His voice sounded strained. Forcing turians to talk without moving a mandible was like asking a human to talk without moving their eyebrows - very trying.

She didn't bother trying to deny that he'd guessed her mind. "Alliance doesn't take quite the same view of shipboard violence as the Hierarchy."

"Luckily though, both the Hierarchy and the Alliance take the same view of Commander Shepard."

"I don't know what you mean. I've never seen proof of that," she said levelly.

"Don't try that on me, Shepard. I was C-Sec long enough to learn how every species sounds when they lie."

She pressed her lips together, privately conceding the point. "Look, I'm an asset, same as the others. And I don't want to be exempted from the rules."

"You're exempt whether you like it or not, Commander." The bed creaked in degrees, like he was turning over very slowly. "You've got a special responsibility and you've got a special set of rules." There was a sharp hiss, as though he'd jostled something he shouldn't.

Shepard shook her head in the dark. "I'm another Alliance officer, just like the rest of them." Even as she said it, it sounded too hollow. "Just like the rest," she tried to repeat more forcefully.

Garrus sighed, his flanged voice quivering slightly in the lower harmonic. "How long are you going to keep pretending that's true?" he asked quietly.

Unbidden, the memory of the marines in the Citadel nightclub rose in her mind. Their adoration. A private hiding his lit joint behind his back. Her stumble covered by Vega when she hadn't known their sound-off, and how she'd secretly felt as she'd walked, stiff-legged, back to the Normandy. She pushed it out. "It's still true. This is an Alliance ship and I'm N7 designation. I'm not above the law."

"They're asking you to undo civil strife between races that were fighting before your own even discovered electricity. To somehow compose a fighting force out of a galaxy that didn't even want to believe the Reapers existed. Basically, they want you to stand in a tide and try to convince it to turn back." He paused. "The crazy thing is, the thing I'll bet half our respective governments never expected, is that you're succeeding. And you're taking a few Reapers down with you."

"I don't think I'm as much of a golden child in their eyes as you think I am. I haven't exactly endeared myself to the authorities over the years," Shepard countered, turning her face to see his expression in the dim light. He was staring at the same tubing she'd been staring at.

"Cipritine, Vancouver, the Citadel, it doesn't matter now. You're their champion. You think all those times you put old noses out of joint weren't forgotten the moment they looked up and saw a Reaper in the sky? They'll throw endless amounts of money and liberties at you and they'll never stop asking for miracles. They'll exempt you from every rule they've got if it means you'll save Earth for them. And Palaven." His voice caught slightly on the last word.

Something was struggling to fight its way out of her stomach. A writhing, gnawing snake she feared would slither upwards and curl around her throat. It felt like the same something that had made her see such vivid red when Garrus had snapped at her for what had happened on Dekuuna today during the shuttle ride back to the Normandy. She'd stood and thrown the first punch without thinking as he'd been telling EDI to cancel the recon debrief for the elcors. At the time, she'd just wanted to make him shut his mouth. But then she'd realised she wanted more. She wanted to inflict an ugly violence on something. She had been filled all the way up with an empty anger and could do nothing to stop it bursting free.

"I'm not special. I'm just Shepard. I don't need to be some kind of protected puppet to get the job done."

He saw her looking at him, and levered himself slowly to an elbow. "Shepard, come on- "

"I'm normal, goddamn it! I don't need anyone making excuses for me. I still deserve the heat if I can't keep my head on straight and throw a punch at my XO!" Her chest ached as she wheezed with the effort to make her voice sound even halfway usual.

"Shepard - "

"I'm not doing anything that can't be done by others. This is just where I am, and what I can do. So I can still save Earth and not be some pastured celebrity politician they wheel out occasionally and pin medals on, completely disconnected from the marine I once was, everything I know -" and she turned her head over to the far side of the medbay because even if he'd heard the choke in her voice, she was damned if he'd see it too.

There was a long silence as she wrestled her emotions back into shape. Every silent shudder sent a fresh wave of pain down her chest. _For god's sake, Shepard. You're a walking wreck today._

"We both know that's not true," he said eventually. There was a careful tentativeness in his voice, like he was disarming a tripmine. "If you manage to pull this off, you're Commander Shepard, hero of the galaxy for the rest of your life. You'll never be normal again."

Whether or not he'd heard or even recognised what her seesawing voice meant, she silently thanked him for his tact in ignoring her lapse in control. She surreptitiously wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I don't know how to be anything else," she began weakly. "There's nothing in me except a soldier. I can't be anything but that."

And she trailed off, knowing there was no fire in any protest she could come up with anymore. The only person she was trying to persuade was herself.

A few long minutes of silence stretched out in the semi-darkness.

"But you're right," she finally finished quietly. "I know you're right." And to both her dismay and strange relief, she found that was the truth. She knew that no matter the outcome of her future battles, she'd never be treated like a normal officer - let alone a normal human - ever again. She'd just been denying it for so long, ignoring the uncomfortable reality, stubbornly hanging onto that cliff edge by her fingers. Now she'd finally fallen off, there was no more struggle. "I do know," she said again, clearly. It felt surprisingly good to say.

"I can't think of anyone else in this whole damn galaxy that could do what you're doing. We're all going to succeed or fail with you. But you've got people on your six, Shepard. All of us, to the bitter end." She turned her head back towards him. He was still on his elbow, his torn hand cradled to his chest. The bandage on his face stood out in bright contrast even in the grey light. "You're not disconnected from us. Not now, not ever." His voice was quiet and emphatic.

She stared at him. There was something she wanted to say, right now, while her heart was getting squeezed in a vice. The words were on the tip of her tongue as she took in the sight of her closest friend swaying slightly with the effort to stay upright, probably half-drugged out of his mind. But not for the first time in these moments, courage failed her.

"Does that mean I've still got the world's worst turian as my second? Maybe now I could pull a few strings, get an upgrade," she eventually said instead. _You're a huge coward_ was what she said to herself, but her lips twitched as he fell back to the bed and laughed. She wished he was pleased for a different reason, but - _shelve it, Shepard._

"You think you can shake me off that easy? Someone needs to get this shambles up to rate, and you're too damn busy building all those ship models."

"Then congratulations, you've just been promoted to Commander. My purview is now solely in the Normandy's toy department. Welcome to the Alliance."

His resulting laugh turned into a groan halfway through. "Spirits, I can't laugh like this."

"Yeah, well." She turned back to watch the ceiling, hands clasping over her middle. "Consider it your reward for giving me an earful while I'm laid up."

He didn't say anything in response. For a few minutes, all she could hear was the soft _skrrtch skrrtch_ of his talons, as though he were clenching and unclenching his hand on the canvas bedsheet.

"What happened to us today?" he said eventually, his voice low. He didn't seem to be asking her directly, just voicing his thoughts to the room. And she knew she wasn't talking about literal details. He was talking about them. The double-act Shepard and Vakarian. Never one without the other. The worst opponents to see on a battlefield and card table for the same reason; they were so in sync that sometimes they just read the other's mind with one word, one look.

It wasn't as if it was the first time they'd argued; hell, it wasn't the hundredth. But the advantage of being friends first and colleagues second was that neither were afraid to give it straight, which made ironing out the kinks in their disagreements usually just a matter of a few more drinks on their tabs. She'd trusted him to watch her back so many times that these days she felt a little strange going into the field without a turian shape over her shoulder.

But none of that had stopped the darkest, ugliest sides of themselves from spilling out all over the shuttle bay floor that afternoon.

She had no answer to his rhetorical question, and stayed silent. A hollow feeling wormed through her at the thought that the curtain was finally drawn on the Shepard and Vakarian show. No encore, no second chances, just the end of its run. The last one to leave, please turn off the lights. It happened all the time in a career that transferred or killed off personnel regularly - friendships formed, friendships parted.

But not like this one. This one had grown, subtly and slowly, into a bond she could no longer easily live without.

She glanced over at him. He'd turned, his back facing her now. She noticed, for the first time, the plastigel casts fitted over his spurs. _It's like someone folding back your hand until it meets your forearm when you break one of those_, she heard her father's voice say.

It was a good show while it lasted.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: So, I couldn't just leave it alone. I wanted to explore how they'd find their way after such a terrible encounter, and what could possibly prompt it. This chapter sheds a bit of light on both their motivations, if indirectly. Check the bottom of the page for some definitions if there's a term you don't recognise. I've also rewritten the first chapter in places, hopefully improving it a bit, so that might be worth a look. _  
><em>

Also, all credit is given to Amber Penglass for Shepard's knowledge of explosives. I can't deny I was influenced by her story 'Sound the Clarion' as I was writing this. It's quite easily my current favourite Garrus/Shepard story, and you should go read it. After you read this, of course.

* * *

><p><em>Attn: Synthetic Insights Ltd., Acquisition Dept.<em>

_To Whom it May Concern,_

_We regret to inform you that Commander Shepard is no longer selling salvaged geth technology, due to recenji90 -_

There was a string of lights across her haptic board as she stumbled forward into her workstation.

"Shit, sorry Traynor! Sorry." She felt an arm on her elbow pulling her square again. The navigator who had jostled her was in his downtime civvies, looking apologetic and already backing away with outstretched hands.

"Oh! Not to worry. Where are you off to in such a hurry?" She was surprised to see him 'above ground' several hours before the 0600 shift began. He was throwing looks over his shoulder towards the bridge, walking backwards around the CIC.

"Uh, well, hah!" he laughed nervously, jerking a thumb towards the bow. "Joker just pinged me... you didn't get the message?"

Traynor lifted her arm and tapped a key. "Nope. Something going on?"

"Well," he chortled, eyes darting. He ran a hand back and forth over his Alliance-issue bristles. "I think it might be need-to-know."

Traynor's brows drew together, but her smile was friendly. "I see. Keeping the Brit out of the fun again?"

"Nah, nah, it's just a boring - " his hand made the universal 'what's the word I need' movement, " - spec check. Uh, sub-orbital nav gear. Yeah, sucks but gotta do 'em, you know? Orders are orders." More nervous laughter. "Uh, anyway, I should be going."

"Ah." The word 'orders' snagged on a reminder in Traynor's internal to-do, and she tabbed out of her email to check the list of daily sent messages. "Did I forward your department the 2-14 from Alenko's terminal today? About destroying the... footage? I meant to tag it onto the shipwide about press coverage on the Commander's sick leave."

"Yeah, we got it fine. So really, I gotta get these reports to Joker, so..." His voice had raised a little. Traynor noticed he had one hand shoved deep in a trouser pocket, clamped into a fist.

"Of course," she said lightly. "See you in the mess -"

She was interrupted by the soft beep of the lift. The door swished open, revealing a half dozen enlisted squashed together inside the small cab. They were whispering among themselves, shooting her restless looks and half-smiles as they filed out and moved as a pack towards the bridge.

"Never seen so many people keen to deliver their reports in person," she murmured.

As they moved off, they revealed the final occupants to be Dr. T'Soni, Tali'Zorah and Vega. The two women had linked arms and bent their heads together, murmuring quietly. The doctor nodded calmly to Traynor as they passed.

The specialist was nothing if not good at pulling patterns out of data. All the people on the way to Joker's little 'spec check' rendezvous had been _SR-1 _alumni. There was a sting she did her best to ignore as she turned back to her half-written email, noting that the navigator had already fled when her back was turned. Oh well. She knew she wasn't going to be invited to every party.

A heavy, bronze arm fell over her shoulder, and for the second time in five minutes, Traynor stumbled into the lip of the CIC. She looked up, surprised. Vega wasn't looking at her, instead gazing into the middle distance. There was a sallow cast to his face that suggested he wasn't sleeping.

"Come on, Widget. You should see this too," he said, pulling her forward.

* * *

><p>"Okay," Joker's neck craned to see around the knot of people. "Okay, we're all here." With a few keystrokes, the oxy-lock shield shimmered into view and darkened, screening the cockpit from the rest of the bridge. The room was now lit only by the orange glow of the interfaces and the faint blue drag ghosting over the hull outside the windows.<p>

"And we all understand the rules, yeah?" He swivelled his chair, pointing to all the cockpit's new occupants in a sweeping semi-circle. "We watch it, EDI fries it, it never goes outside this room." He made a vague boxy shape with his hands. "Sacred space, guys. Which means if I see any updates on your GalaxNet page, Pearson, I'll let your smokes _and _your Kaleena Berrydew series test our next relay hop." The navigator she'd encountered earlier shifted his weight and coughed.

Traynor clasped her hands together in a tight ball, unsure whether she should make her excuses and leave. She still didn't know what this was all about, and it suddenly seemed like she was intruding. Maybe this wasn't a party she wanted to attend after all. Only Vega's arm kept her in place for the time being.

Joker caught her shuffling and swivelled his chair again, which right now seemed more of a throne from which the king of his domain was addressing his subjects.

"Chill, Traynor. You're cool. But this can't get back to the butter bars, alright? No chickening out later and getting us smoked." She nodded, hands coming down to her sides in an attempt to appear natural. This was sounding more and more like her uni dorm after someone scored a bag of Khar'shan herbal off the batarian student.

"Can't Shepard check the logs to see who accessed the file? That would be rather incriminating," Liara piped up.

There was a soft, metallic whir as the gauss servos in EDI's legs fired. She stood up and faced the assembled, hands folding neatly behind her back.

"No. That was the condition of my participation in Jeff's scheme." She spoke from her new platform rather than the ship's speakers, the facial movements accompanied by barely audible clicks as the fine motor mechanisms engaged. It was still a little unnerving. "The video files have been lifted from the physical server by Navigator Pearson. They are now the only copies in existence. It cannot be traced back through me."

Her voice was smooth as usual, but Traynor thought she detected a hint of coolness in place of the more 'humanized' emotes she chose to inject in her speech these days. EDI was clearly not pleased with recent events. "I told Jeff I would not be an accessory in his decision to disobey Major Alenko's order to immediately destroy the files."

Joker picked his head up from where he was fiddling under the helm. "C'mon EDI, not all of us are hooked up to the shuttle cams around the clock. And some of us had our asses stuck on the bridge instead of in ringside seats." Joker flashed Vega a grin, which was only mildly returned. "Think of it as a heartwarming interest in the troubles of our Commander," he continued with a handwave.

The AI turned her face away from him. If it was possible for a robot to looked miffed, Traynor was seeing it. Joker clucked his tongue and ducked back under the dash.

"I just hope you're right, EDI. We can't let this get loose beyond the ship," Tali interjected, sounding worried. "I mean, I am curious, but if it got into the main channels... I'd never forgive myself."

"Don't worry, Admiral Zorah. I have taken every precaution to ensure this information is protected from wideband communications. Jeff is temporarily disconnecting his station's physical link to my network, just to be safe."

"Oh, good idea," Tali conceded. "And please don't call me that," she added in a murmur. EDI inclined her head slightly.

Traynor took advantage of the darkness to glance over the faces beside her. Knotty brows, folded arms, chewed lips. She wasn't a handpicked analyst for nothing, but it would take a particularly dim vorcha not to figure out what they were really here to see. There were some acidic pin-pricks in her stomach at the thought of what might happen if Chakwas or Alenko caught them here. The thought of the look of disappointment on the face of the careworn British medic filled her with dread. She'd been something like her de facto mentor over the last few months, helping the raw and frightened speccie ease into a new life of high pressure and chaos. Traynor thought that look would be by far the greater punishment over anything Shepard could dish out for insubordination. It was obvious the rest of the crew present were also aware of everything they were risking.

"Hey, Joker." One of the gunnery engineers was poking the helmsman in the shoulder. "Get a move on. Some of us don't get two hour breaks," she said tensely.

"Yeah, yeah. Settle down, would you? SECNAV isn't gonna come busting in here and shoot our hands off the cookie jar," Joker retorted, yanking on a stubborn cable.

The engineer grimaced. "You're a hell of a guy, you know that? A real goddamn stress reliever."

"Do my best," he mumbled into the nest of wiring. He pulled at a fibre optic running under his seat, until it disconnected with a pop. "Alright, done."

He sat back up and began typing command lines into his interface. A holo screen popped up to the left of the pilot chair. "Let's watch us some vids. You gonna commentate, Vega?"

The arm that had been squeezing her shoulder was suddenly removed. Traynor watched as the typically easygoing, extroverted marine folded his arms and leaned against the bulkhead. There was a closed, blank expression on his face that was barely visible in the orange glow.

"No way esé. This shit speaks for itself," he replied quietly.

"Suit yourself, man." The screen flickered to life with a low-res image of the Kodiak's interior, and everyone except EDI leaned forward.

Small text in the bottom left of the picture stated 'DEKUUNA - 36:02 LOCAL 17:02 SHIPBOARD'. One door of the shuttle was opened, and Traynor could just distinguish the waving, straw-coloured grasses of the elcor homeworld through the heavy pixellation.

Suddenly, there was a series of crackling booms which had Joker scrambling for the volume. On screen, the other door of the shuttle was flung open with a clang and the top half detached to be thrown back into the body of the vehicle. Kneeling to use the opened flap as a tripod for his Black Widow Mark IV was a familiar turian figure. Wisps of acrid, bluish smoke rose from the muzzle of the gun.

"Forgot how loud that thing was," Joker mumbled.

There was a pause in the huge, echoing shots as the shooter rolled his neck to reset his deadeye before continuing to fire. They couldn't see the his intended targets, but with each shot he moved smoothly with the recoil, already adjusting aim before the gun had finished its kick, and fired again. A heat sink was ejected and a new one inserted without him lifting his head from the scope or a break in the rhythm. His movements were tightly precise, rolling into each other and making it difficult to tell where one action ended and the next began. In fifteen seconds he'd pulled nine shots out of the enormous cannon and Traynor would put good cred on each of them being a kill.

Someone let out a low whistle. "Damn. That dino is good," one of the bridge staff commented.

"You should see him when he's actually trying," Liara said with a touch of pride.

Tali smothered a giggle behind a hand. "Lucky he didn't know he'd have an audience eventually. He'd have tried it blindfolded, or with a hand behind his back."

Liara sighed. "Probably. Him and Shepard are bad enough just when they're trying to outdo each other, let alone for a crowd."

"But it's always so fun to watch them!" Tali replied with spirit. "Remember Feros? Driving across that bridge filled with geth?"

"I remember them making _me _drive that infernal machine so they could hold some childish competition shooting out of the windows. My definition of 'fun' somewhat differs," Liara grumbled.

"What happened?" Vega spoke up, still sounding unusually withdrawn.

Tali laughed. "They made me the scorekeeper. Both of them kept trying to make me sabotage the other's tally, trying to bribe me between shots." She paused. "I think Shepard promised me an Alliance medal at one point."

"So, where's Cortez? You'd think he'd be out there showboating too if the shuttle was dirtside," the gunny who'd prodded Joker earlier said, bringing their attention back to the screen.

"Ah," Liara spoke up again, her tone considerably sobered. "He was escorting Major Alenko and I back from our afternoon with the Grissom Academy transport. They'd just been reassigned to the Crucible biotics division and happened to be on a nearby flightpath. I... I requested it on a whim really, I thought the children would appreciate speaking to biotics with field experience. Shepard consented of course, but I almost wish she hadn't." Traynor could hear the painful regret in her voice. "It meant there were no biotics aboard when they were most particularly needed."

"Javik was here, wasn't he?" Traynor asked.

"Let me rephrase; no biotics aboard who would have cared enough to intervene," Liara responded tightly.

Tali looped a comforting arm over Liara's shoulder. "You can't wallow in guilt for not being in two places at once. No one could have known what would happen."

"And trust me, I don't know if biotics would have made any difference when the shit really hit the fan," Vega added grimly. "Those two were loco el grando. Big crazy."

Joker leaned back in his seat to look at Vega upside down. "Hey, speaking of, where were you while Garrus was having his little birthday party here?"

Vega regarded the screen for a few moments. He leaned forward and tapped a spot on the horizon. Squinting, Traynor could just make out a blurry clump of trees where his finger had landed. "There. With Shepard."

* * *

><p>Vega hit the dirt with a slide, parting the knee-high grass with a divot from his boot. The rocky outcrop they'd come up against was the only cover in the immense golden plain except for the treeline they'd left about a click behind. He remembered seeing Earth vids of the African savannah before the global warming had changed the planet's weather patterns. This plateau had the same parched, flattened look, like someone had swept out all the objects in the landscape and left only the rippling golden grass.<p>

Gusts of wind came rolling down from the east, riding ahead of a threatening bank of clouds. The gales felt like a wall being pressed into his right side. One of the elcors back at the evac zone had helpfully informed them that this was monsoon season, and they had a few hours at most before the whole planet turned into a nightmare slip n' slide. Their grav cushioners were already running hot trying to counteract the effect of Dekuuna's natural four g's, so raindrops as heavy as ball bearings would put today squarely in the 'drink to forget' column.

Fortunately they'd been almost on top of the rock formation when the strained, unnatural rasping told them that Reaper toys were nearby. Anywhere else on this plain and they'd have been roasting on a husk spit by now. Vega checked the clip in his assault rifle by reflex before turning to Shepard and waiting for orders. With some amazing good luck, they might still have the drop on them.

Shepard pulled a line across her mouth to indicate silence. She edged the end of her 'snake scope' over lip of the rock until it dangled into the gully below and squinted through the eyepiece. After a few seconds she dropped back and used a series of brusque hand signals to communicate what she saw.

Group of seven. No weapons. Unalerted. No line of sight.

He sent a quick thankyou to his Señora de Guadalupe_._

He figured they must be hard up on the wall, or maybe in a small cave formed by whatever they were standing on. The husks couldn't see them but there was no chance to safely snipe from above. Shepard signalled the switch to incendiaries, and Vega flicked a pin on the side of his rifle. Shepard shook her head, making a cycling motion with her two index fingers. James frowned and tapped the shotgun strapped to his back. She nodded.

He carefully, quietly unhooked his M-27 Scimitar and reset the ammo block to incendiary. He wasn't sure what Shepard's gameplan was yet, and she must have caught the look of uncertainty on his face. She held up one hand in a straight vertical, and made a wave motion over the top, like water flowing over an obstruction.

Suddenly, it clicked; this far out from a larger Reaper force, husks were a lot less tactical. Closer to zombies than soldiers. Once they'd figured out their position, they'd try to swarm over the natural wall without a second thought. Vega grinned and touched the tip of his index finger and thumb together, signalling he'd caught onto her idea. She returned it with a tight nod. Yeah, Lola didn't smile so much these days.

Shepard detached a flashbang from the magnetized belt on her waist. Holding up three fingers, she motioned him into a crouch. He gripped the stock of his gun, muscles tensing, waiting for the spring.

She folded down a finger. Three, two, one -

Vega squeezed his eyes shut and ducked his head. There was an obnoxiously high pitched whine from somewhere below them, followed by a burst of brilliant white light. Starburst patterns floated over his vision as he opened his eyes to see Shepard shouting "Go, go, go!", and he was surging to his feet. The whine was fading now, replaced by the snarls and rattles of husks. He vaulted the rock he'd been behind and stood astride, aiming his muzzle into the waving grasses of the valley below. Two husks had recovered quickly and were already scrambling up the drop, twelve metres below their feet. The sweet spot range on his Scimitar was five metres. He steeled his nerves as he looked down into the twisted, grotesque caricatures of human faces, willing himself to wait before pulling the trigger.

Shepard had climbed onto the flattish rock beside him, her Carnifex drawn but not firing. They both knew that a few slugs from her sidearm wouldn't drop a husk like a blast from his shotgun. "On my signal, Vega," she shouted over the increasingly agitated sounds from the unnatural beasts below. Several more had began scaling the rock face, scrabbling on loose stones and each other in a desperate frenzy to reach them and take a chunk out of their warm meat. Eight metres... seven metres... six...

"Light 'em up!"

He fired straight into their centre mass. A burst of super-heated buckshot coated with a highly flammable tar sprayed in a v-shape on their heads. The force blew a hole straight through the skulls of the first two climbers, their ragged bodies twitching as they lost their grip on the wall. Small fires sprung up wherever the shot had embedded as the tar ignited on the friction of contact. Shepard put a few rounds in each to seal the deal, and their charred corpses collapsed onto the two husks following below. The heavy gravity made them all fall back to earth like bowling balls off a skyscraper. There was an ear-piercing screech from one of the husks crushed under the weight of his comrade, its spine snapped.

He put another two rounds into the next wave still trying to claw their way to the top despite the carnage. One lost an arm and part of their torso, blue fluid and tubing flailing out of the hole torn in the sickly grey skin.

But he had misjudged the distance by a fraction, and two of them fell off relatively unscathed. The one who had survived the lethal drop was dragging itself slowly out from under the pile of dead weight, clearly injured but still breathing.

The two still on their feet suddenly seemed to grow a sense of self-preservation between them and turned tail, skittering quick as rabbits out onto the grassy plain.

"Oh shit!" Vega exclaimed, fumbling quickly for a new heat sink off his belt as he thumbed the release on the chamber. But before he could push the clip into place, Shepard had dropped to a knee and pulled the M-97 Viper off her back. Vega went still as he watched her angle her head to the scope and inhale a deep breath. The muzzle of the rifle waved almost imperceptibly in the air, tracing the zigzags of the crazed husks. They were veering paths indiscriminately, running faster than was possible for any natural biped thanks to the Reaper tech pumping through their rotting legs.

She pulled the trigger and he saw one crumple like a rag doll, a hole the size of an apple in the back of its neck. By now, its companion was little more than distant smudge on the grass.

Exhale. Inhale. The gun adjusted slightly on her shoulder. Vega wasn't sure if she was even blinking. "Clean that last one up," she murmured without looking at him. He looked down to see the broken body of a husk trying to drag itself away on its arms. Picking up Shepard's discarded Carnifex, he put two slugs in its back, and on the second shot, there was a echo from the sniper rifle next to him. Looking up, Vega caught the tail end of an electric blue explosion as the husk's skull vanished off its neck. Its jerking remains disappeared below the tops of the gently waving stalks.

Vega whistled. "Goddamn, Lola."

Shepard swung the rifle over one arm as she stood and retrieved the Carnifex from his outstretched hand, fastening it back to her hip. "You aren't half bad with that old buckshooter yourself."

He struck a muscle man pose. "It's all in the thighs, gorgeous."

She laughed. Just once, short and sweet, but it was music to his ears. She'd been wound up tighter than a screw on an exterior hull lately. He knew she wasn't right in the head so much anymore, but he'd have to be under a Reaper eyeball to admit that out loud and maybe not even then. In his eyes, she was a damn hero for wading through the shit she'd seen and not ending up in a padded cell. He knew he'd be in one if someone woke him up tomorrow and told him the safety of a galaxy depended on the shots he called.

Didn't stop him wanting the real Commander back, though. He needed that solid presence, that steady eye, that firm hand on the shoulder. They all did. So a sign she was still alive and kicking in there, that she could still nail a bogey right between the eyes without so much a tremble made his spirits soar.

Shepard climbed to a higher vantage point and shaded her eyes as she surveyed the plain in front of them. She touched a finger to the side of her marksman visor, dialing back the zoom. "We're closing in on the mark. Something out here is emitting whatever is stopping those evac ships from getting off the ground."

"I don't see nothing but grass and dead husks out here, boss," Vega said as he clambered to join her.

"Joker, confirm my coordinates." Her face closed down again. Back to business.

"Coords confirmed. You're in the one-fifty metre ring of the location we got from the elcors, Commander."

"Any luck on an ID?"

A smooth, artificial voice came on over both their radios. "The data packet pulse is too encrypted to allow comprehensive analysis of the signature. I would require a hard link to the primary transmitter. However, I recognise these codings. It is almost certainly Reaper tech."

Shepard looked down at the oozing carnage below them and grimaced. "I'd say we can upgrade that status to 'certain'. Garrus, what's the word on the shuttle?"

"Nothing I did changed a thing, Shepard." A tinny gunshot crackled through their earpieces. "Whatever locked out our systems locked us out nice and tight. It's not going anywhere until you switch off that signal."

Shepard pressed her earpiece in, closing a hand over the heel of her sidearm. "You taking fire?"

"Just a few sleep-walkers, nothing to raise a pulse over. I've got some elcor soldiers taking potshots with me. Let's just say I'm a little underchallenged on the scoreboard."

"Cocky bastard. Try to remember how diplomacy works, will you?" Shepard turned her face away, but not before Vega spotted a small grin.

"How could I forget? Turians are natural peacemakers, you know."

"You've got to be part krogan then."

"Well, that would explain my good looks and sunny disposition."

"Yeah, and all that raw meat you eat," Joker interjected. "Seriously man, when I sat next to you at chow time yesterday I nearly puked - "

Shepard dragged the back of a thumb across her mouth, looking amused. "Alright, can it. Vega, we're going to keep looking. Joker, just keep the Normandy upwind of whatever the hell that signal is."

"On it." Joker sounded slightly sheepish. "Normandy out."

Vega began scanning the rocks for an easy descent into the gully. Spotting a promising route, he began to play a game of careful leapfrog down the ragged boulders. Shepard followed from above, one hand holding the rock face for balance, the other pressed to her ear.

"Repeat your last, Garrus. I missed that."

"I said, the elcor captain in charge of these evacuators wants to speak with you. Should I patch him in?"

"Go ahead."

A heavy, ponderous voice began to drone. "Urgently; Commander Shepard, we have news. The effect of this signal is far more widespread than we initially calculated. The support brigades we requested from the nearest tribes just crashed due to system error over seven hundred Citadel-standard kilometres away. With humble regret; we did not anticipate this. Our land vehicles are as useless as our ships. With barely contained fear; we will be overrun by Reaper forces before nightfall if we cannot escape."

"That's not happening, captain. We're getting your people out of here," Shepard replied with steely conviction. "Keep the civilians calm, and hold your position. Once we disable whatever the hell is transmitting that scrambler, the Normandy will escort you to the Citadel."

Vega's feet hit solid ground. He did a quick sweep for bogeys out on the plain behind them, but there was nothing but the oozing bodies of husks where they'd fallen. Turning, he faced the cliffside to help the Commander. What he saw made his breath catch.

"Are there any other reports of these signals in other places on Dekuuna?" Shepard continued, still above his head on the rocks.

"Relieved; no. This is a small farming village we were charged to evacuate. They are very remote. As far as we know, nowhere else is affected."

"Commander, you need to see this," Vega called, his hands on his hips.

Shepard nodded to him. "Good to hear, Captain. Hang tight and this will be over soon," she said to the elcor. "Report in if anything changes. Shepard out."

She edged herself over the side of the last protruding boulder and dropped the ground, husk blood turning the dirt under her feet to mud. "What is it, Veg - whoa."

He nodded. "Yeah."

Shepard touched a finger to her earpiece again. "Garrus, can you get that captain back on the line?"

* * *

><p>The headache was killing her. She wondered how bad it was for Vega. His circulation had to be affected by the gravity too, but she doubted he was feeling it as severely as she was, considering how tired she'd been even before they'd touched down on a world that felt like it was trying to suck her through the planet's crust. She was fighting like hell just to keep her mind on the job. It kept wandering off on ambling trails from exhaustion, and it was getting harder to pull it back. Just holding her gun in position, something as familiar to her muscles as walking, was starting to feel like a strain. She hoped he hadn't noticed. As they trekked deeper into the artificial tunnel Vega had discovered, she tried to remember the last time she'd gotten a full eight hours of sleep.<p>

A vision of something small and pale darting through trees flashed through her mind. She immediately walled off the thought and tried to focus on something else.

"How deep did they say this goes?" she asked her companion, her hand briefly trailing over the drill marks on the narrow walls of the passage. It felt like sandstone under her fingertips.

"About fifty metres. Hell of a place to put a military cache, out in the sticks and deep underground. Can't see shit in here," Vega grumbled.

"I'd say that's the perfect place to put it," Shepard responded, flicking on the torch in her omnitool and adding its light to the ones above their guns.

"Not if I'm an elcor. I'm getting cramps from this place even at human size," he said, following suit on his own omni.

"I don't know if you qualify as 'human size'," she said absently, watching her torch beam skitter over hidey holes in the walls filled with what looked like nosegays of grass seeds and wildflowers. They seemed artfully arranged, almost ritualistic. She wondered if they were icons of elcor spiritual protection. If they were, she hoped they worked.

There was nothing in the distance except more of the same winding tunnel. The strings of lightbulbs embedded in the rock above them all lay dark. They had already doubled back a few times, the passage acting like a flight of stairs in a multistorey building. The incline was steep, and her calves were burning from the effort. She fervently hoped it wasn't much farther.

"Keep your eyes peeled for entrances to adjoining tunnels. Last thing we need is a patrol coming up on our asses down here," she said. Vega grunted his assent.

She brought her omnitool up to her face, squinting in the low light. "Signal ping strength is huge. We gotta be close."

They rounded another corner, and Shepard thankfully noted that the floor had finally levelled off. They swept their vectors as usual despite no signs of life. As they made their last pass, something metallic glinted out of the gloom. They both froze.

"You caught that?" Shepard said under her breath.

"Yeah," he whispered, his rifle coming up to his shoulder.

"Alright. Stick to the walls, go in quiet."

They began to edge down the tunnel, torches giving them frustratingly little illumination of whatever lay further ahead. Tiny reflective flashes teased them, but she couldn't figure out the bigger picture they formed. Her boots slipped a little as she inched forward.

Glancing down, she saw the fine grey dust had turned a bluish black in sections, dotted sporadically as though from a leaking spoor. She stirred it with a foot, watching it coalesce into mud. Husk fluid.

"Uta madre... I think it's a cavern." Vega breathed. She looked back up. He'd advanced about ten metres ahead, and she jogged up to his side.

He was right. The claustrophobic tunnel suddenly opened out into a space as long as the Normandy from nose to thruster and as high as three grown men standing on each other's shoulders. It seemed naturally formed, stalactite and stalagmite formations throwing shadows as their torches trailed over them. A distant trickling told her that a stream fed into the cave somewhere they couldn't see. There were bundles of mechanical parts wrapped in waterproof sheeting scattered among larger versions of the bouquets they'd seen before. Shepard recognised the contents of a few as componentry belonging to the cannons elcor warriors wore on their backs into battle.

And deep in the middle of the cave stood something that clearly didn't belong.

"What in sweet hell is that?" Vega whispered.

"No idea," Shepard said slowly. "But I don't think the elcors put it there. Start checking for husks in those corners."

They parted with a nod. Shepard lifted her gun and methodically swept the ceiling with her torch, remembering the fondness of the husks she'd seen on the derelict Reaper for ambushing them from overhead.

After confirming they were safe from at least one unpleasant surprise, she advanced on the alien device. Her eyes still instinctively darted left and right for hostiles. If this was a Reaper machine, it was unnerving how empty this place was. It should have been crawling with indoctrinated.

"No visual on any tangos, Commander," Vega called from elsewhere in the cave. His voice echoed off the high ceiling. "I'm thinking we would have seen something by now."

"They should have heard us coming a mile off," she called back. "But I don't like it. Sweep again, check for hidden corridors. I'm gonna check out this thing on the floor."

It was gunmetal grey and shaped vaguely like a tripod with an antenna, standing at about waist height on Shepard. At the base of the contraption was a string of lights that lit up in sequence. Shepard kneeled and watched them cycle through to blank before glancing down at her omnitool to confirm her suspicions. When all the lights were lit, the ping strength on the mysterious signal peaked.

"Bingo," she murmured. She began sliding her hands along the side of the device, looking for a control panel of some description. She wasn't hopeful, considering it had most likely been designed by Reapers. Which made her very surprised when a small panel clicked open, revealing a group of buttons clearly meant for creatures with digits.

She didn't pause to consider that mystery for long, however. "EDI, you read me all the way down here?"

"Your signal is weak, Commander. I will attempt to compensate."

"I'm sending you a visual." Shepard snapped a holo and uploaded it to the Normandy server.

"Scanning. Unclassified synthetic device. Consistent with previously archived Reaper engineering."

"Can you interface with it?"

"Your omnitool's wireless parameters prevent me from accessing its internal processes. You will have to link me directly."

Shepard felt a tightening in her gut. "I'd rather not do that, EDI. We don't know if this thing would plug you straight into the mind of a Reaper."

"I will wall off all of my critical functioning. The Normandy will be unharmed, I assure you."

There was a crackle as a second voice interjected. "Uh, can I just add that sticking our AI into anything made by a Reaper is probably a bad idea?" Joker said. Shepard heard the concern in his voice, and she knew it wasn't for the Normandy's critical functioning.

"I will be fine, Jeff. Please continue, Shepard."

"If you're sure, EDI. I'm pulling you out at first sign of trouble." Using an all-purpose tool she kept on the underside of her Viper, she prised off the faceplate on the button panel. A thick ribbon of wiring greeted her. It was disturbing how easily she appraised the layout, and how quickly she found the cord running to the machine's CPU. The mechanisms appeared alien, but felt familiar. She pulled a thin fibre optic cable from a spool under her omnitool.

"Alright, connecting you now. Get ready."

Shepard touched the naked end of her suit's wire to the guts of the machine.

"Disconnect me, Shepard. Disconnect me! Quickly!" EDI's voice was garbled and shot through with a high pitch tone. Shepard wrenched the cable out like it was a live wire that had fallen in a swimming pool.

"EDI! What the hell happened!" Shepard shouted. She heard Vega running up to her side. There was nothing but static and beeps over her comms, and she looked down. Her omnitool was glitching out like crazy, and she slammed the button for a hard reset.

She scrambled to her feet. "Get Joker on the line, _now!_"

Vega's jaw was tight. "Joker, what's going on up there?"

"I don't know! Something's wrong, she's - "

"Joker? Joker!"

The twenty seconds Shepard had to wait until her omni was back online were agonising. She dragged Vega back away from the machine like she'd just found a ticking bomb inside. When her radio had finally rebooted, she opened a direct line to the speakers in the Normandy's bridge.

"Talk to me, Joker."

"Okay, she's... she seems alright. She just started freaking out and making these weird sounds. I told you this was a bad idea! Oh god, EDI, say something."

"I am... still here."

Shepard started pacing. "What the hell just happened to you?"

"Something... strange. A dump of information so vast that I... couldn't process it. Please wait while my systems come back online and I will analyse the signal source."

"An infodump? So it was a Reaper?"

"No, I don't think so. Please wait."

"Hurry, EDI." Shepard glanced around the silent cavern. Empty for now, but who knew what the hell they'd just alerted. Vega seemed to have the same bad feeling, the muzzle of his rifle bouncing from left to right as he checked the corners of the room.

"Analysis concluded. I would advise an immediate departure from Dekuuna."

Shepard stopped pacing. "What?"

"That data pulse is not just emitting a scrambler for local shipboard computers. In fact, I believe that is simply an unintended byproduct."

A thin tendril of fear blossomed in her stomach. "EDI, be specific!" she snapped.

"It is transmitting an extremely accurate targeting signal into space. Any ships with the necessary equipment could use that signal to launch precision strikes from orbit." EDI paused. "It is a bullseye."

Shepard swallowed. "So you're saying that Reapers could use this to raze the planet without even touching down? What's the range on this thing?"

"By my calculations... to the edge of this sun's system."

Vega swore loudly. Shepard sucked in a breath.

"So if Reaper enters this system, no matter where, it could turn and shoot a laser onto this precise spot?"

"Yes. Though I imagine they would use carpeting weapons to maximise area hit."

"That's good to know, EDI. Now how the hell do we switch this thing off?" Shepard's eyes were already rapidly inventorising the supplies scattered in caches along the cavern, searching for anything resembling heavy ordinance.

"It does not have an 'off' state. You will have to destroy it."

"Can you shut it down internally?" she asked, walking along a line of cloth covered bundles.

"Hey, there's no way you're plugging her back into that thing again," Joker said forcefully. Shepard realised she was still speaking over the Normandy bridge speakers. "She might not get lucky this time."

Shepard kneeled down and began pulling apart the ties on a bundle that appeared to have various forms of cabling tangled inside. The elcor military's system of inventory left a lot to be desired. "It's not my first choice Joker, but we need to know our options here."

"At best, I could distort the signal slightly. I could not remove it completely," EDI answered regretfully. "I'm sorry, Shepard."

"You're doing what you can, EDI. So, what if I just yank out the wiring?"

"It has several redundant systems in place should tampering occur, including a shockwave generator that would render any organics in the immediate radius unconscious."

"Shepard, heads up!" Vega called suddenly. She looked up and saw him aiming the Scimitar at the device. She reached up and preemptively covered her ears as he pulled the trigger, but the sound of his shots in the enclosed space still left a residual hum bouncing around her skull.

The 'bullseye' seemed unfazed by the almost pointblank attack. It hadn't so much as rocked backwards.

"Looks like bullets aren't gonna cut it on a Reaper hull," she said, lowering her hands.

"What?" he shouted, pointing to an ear. Shepard rolled her eyes.

"Start looking around," she said with a raised voice. "We want detonators, fuses, and anything that could explode. None of our gear will take that thing out."

He seemed to get the message and jogged off with a salute. When she was sure he was out of sight, she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Her frontal lobe was throbbing in time to her heartbeat, and it felt like a deafening roar through which all clear thought had to fight to be heard.

The boy ran through the red forest, just out of reach. Always out of reach. Shady figures oscillated in the darkness.

Her eyes snapped open. _Focus, marine._

She began ripping the supply bags apart with impunity, searching for anything that could be reassembled into a bomb. A few sundry items spilled onto the floor; dried herbs, a sack of small gears, something that appeared to be a non-electronic compass. Nothing that would explode.

The scent of the herbs wafted to her nose, released from the cloth enclosure. Her eyes and mouth began to water from the strength of their fumes. She picked up the bundle and sniffed. It reminded her of vinegar. One of the unopened buds on the stem popped when she squeezed it, releasing acidic fluid.

There was a burst of static on her comm. "Shepard, we've got visual on some descending ships about five clicks out. Elcors say they aren't theirs," Garrus said, his voice patchy and distorted.

She calibrated the frequency on the comm line before responding. "Insignias?"

"Can't tell," he said after a moment. "They're down behind a treeline now. They seemed to be controlling their descent just fine, no interference from the signal." He sounded unnaturally calm, almost casual. It was the same voice he used when he was trying to convince her the bullet he just took 'wasn't as bad as it looked'.

"EDI, access the satellites in orbit over Dekuuna, tell me what those ships are," Shepard said briskly.

"Immediately, Commander. Though I feel obliged to tell you that accessing global satellite feeds is a serious felony in Citadel space - "

"I don't think the elcors will prosecute if we save their lives, somehow," Shepard interrupted, kneeling down to untie a large bunch of the vinegar grass.

"I concur, Shepard. Accessing feeds... oh."

Sometimes Shepard could swear EDI enjoyed suspense. "What is it?" she barked, anxiety fraying her patience.

"I believe those ships are indoctrinated transports."

Her stomach came up into her throat. Garrus was defending a few hundred civilians with nothing but a ragtag group of militia for support. "How many? How long before they reach the settlement?"

"Three standard cargo ships. They appear to be repurposed Hornet transports. They will reach the elcor village in about ten Earth-standard minutes. If Joker brings us closer, I may be able to access their navigational systems -"

"No," Shepard interrupted. "Do not enter the signal zone, you hear me?"

"Then I recommend immediate evac. I will keep you updated, Shepard."

Shepard opened a different line on her comm. "Garrus, you hear all that?"

"I'll keep my eyes on the horizon." She knew turians well enough to pick up the subtonal inflection of stress, even if he sounded as calm as ever on the surface. "Just hurry and blow that thing to hell."

Shepard was all too happy to oblige. But before she could move onto the next group of supplies, she heard Vega's shout.

"Shepard!" A heavy metallic thud rang through the cavern, like he'd kicked something with the toe of his armoured boot. "Hear that? I think I found the good stuff, boss."

She turned towards the sound and spotted his broad back through a set of tall stalagmites. Jogging over, she pushed him aside and peered through.

She was greeted by a welcome sight. A raised pallet, scattered with universal heat sinks, elcor MREs and rolls of pre-gelled bandages as thick as her torso. And nestled in the middle like two huge emu eggs, a pair of mortar shells.

For the briefest moment in time, she was sitting in the chair in front of her mother's desk, her legs swinging in empty air as pictures of alien weaponry slid over the screen placed in her lap.

_And what is the elcor military famous for?_

_Elcors? Do they even have a military? I thought they were too big and slow._

_Everyone's got a military, little lamb. Don't let someone's appearance trick you into thinking they're so different from us._

"Those are D-438 shells. The elcor use them in ground based turrets, usually as anti-aircraft ordinance."

Vega reached down and hefted one into a hand. "Yeah, but can we set them to blow somehow?"

Shepard reached out and took the shell from him. It was amazingly heavy, and her wrist bowed involuntarily. Her other hand came up to grip the base in support. She lifted it closer to her ear and tilted it forwards, then backwards. A sound like sand shifting in a paperweight was just audible, and she nodded in satisfaction.

"They should be filled with a salarian-designed saltpetre compound, or something close to it. Highly explosive."

"Damn," Vega whistled. "Those big bastards are nastier than I thought."

Shepard turned it over, calculating rapidly. If she soaked a thin cable in the vinegar from the grass, she could rig up a rudimentary fuse that could be snaked through a hole in the side of the shell casing. If they placed the mortars correctly, they could shape a charge onto the underside of the transmitter. There was enough material here to put a serious dent in the floor, but how would they trigger it without blowing themselves up as well? They had no remote detonator, and the cabling she'd discovered wouldn't run the length of the tunnel. Exploding that much saltpetre at close range would almost certainly cause a cave-in of the soft sandstone.

"Garrus, ask the elcor if they ever stashed a detonator with a long range in here, something they'd use for mining."

"Hold on," he replied. Shepard heard the squeal of a dying husk in the background before his comm shut off. When he returned after a few moments, the squeal was further away. "He says the mining equipment is in an underground cache near the quarry, which is about five Dekunna kilometres away. Unfortunately, that's about fifty Citadel clicks."

"Dammit!" She smacked an open palm onto a nearby stalagmite. A trickle of sweat was beginning to creep down her temple. "Not enough time!"

"Wait, why do you need a detonator? Doesn't Vega have any ammo left?" Garrus said. And that was all he needed to say for the lightbulb in Shepard's brain to switch on. One of the handy functions of their milspec incendiary ammo was that the blocks could be reprogrammed to melt through their casing, exploding the thermite tar over the ground. It was useful for setting up basic ambushes in the field. Or for acting as a pilot light to the bigger bomb.

"You're a genius, Vakarian." Shepard counted herself lucky for the umpteenth time that she had someone to think for her when she couldn't do it alone.

"It's a blessing and a curse. We've got a fresh wave incoming, Garrus out."

Shepard waved James over from where he was carefully setting the shells down closer to the tripod. "Give me your shotgun. You still got incendiary rounds in there, right?"

He unholstered the gun and handed it over. "Only a few. What you need it for?"

She kneeled and began to rapidly dissemble the gun. "On the base of the block there should be a det code. It'll let me trigger those D-438's from a distance."

Vega looked from the shells to the gun and back again. Finally, he seemed to put the pieces together. "Oh, that's sweet as sugar. We're gonna bury this place good."

Shepard grinned up at him. "Damn straight, marine. Now lay those shells on their sides directly under the bullseye. We need it to get the brunt. I don't know how much of a beating that thing can take, but I'm betting it's a lot."

As Vega started arranging the huge mortars, she released the last catch on the chamber and the ammo block slipped free. Turning it over, sure enough, there was an eight digit code stamped on the bottom. Setting it aside, she began to reassemble the gun. She caught a glance at the clock on her omnitool as she worked. About five minutes more to rig the explosion and get the refugee ships in the sky at her reckoning. The tight knot in her stomach loosened slightly. She could see the end of the day again; that moment in the field when she knew a plan would come together and all her team would be sleeping on the Normandy come nightfall.

Vega sat back on his haunches, task complete. "Alright, what now?"

Shepard picked up the newly recreated shotgun and the ammo block. She placed the former back into its owner's hands, considerably lighter with one of its ammo chambers empty.

"Now, you make for the surface. I'll be right behind you."

His brow furrowed. "Shouldn't we go together?"

Shepard rubbed a hand over her chin. "I need to you make sure we haven't got a surprise party waiting for us up top. Once that trigger goes in, I don't want anything coming down to pull it out. And I haven't got the thighs for all that close range work." That earned a laugh.

"I'll make sure we're secure."

"Radio in when you're breathing fresh air." She watched his torchlight fade back out into the tunnel. He didn't need to know there was a chance the saltpetre could explode when she started drilling in the side of the shells. No sense in them both getting killed.

She touched her earpiece. "Garrus, tell the elcor to get aboard their ships and get ready to dust off. This signal should be down in the next five minutes."

"That was a nice thing you did for Vega," Garrus said with slightest hint of a tease in his voice. Her comm line had been open the whole time, she realised.

Shepard rolled her eyes but didn't take his obvious bait. "Yeah, well. He's a good kid. Doesn't remember much from his explosive materials class, thank god."

"I don't seem to remember you ever protecting me like that. Are you pining for those strangely overstuffed muscles? Come on, you can tell me."

Shepard scoffed as she quickly stripped the casing from some wires. "Never protecting you? Every time I made sure you weren't put on cleaning detail with Wrex is probably a time you owe me your life, Vakarian."

"So you're avoiding the question? _Very _interesting."

Shepard paused squeezing out the buds of the vinegar grass on the naked wire. "Look, I know your meagre skills aren't enough to let you talk and shoot, so just shoot."

His line cut off with a peal of chuckles.

She shook her head. Despite having a husk army no doubt advancing on his position, that turian was still trying to make her laugh. She rubbed off the beads of sweat forming on her brow, leaving streaks of dust in their wake. He just couldn't help himself, she supposed. Had she ever told him how much she appreciated that habit of his? God, she was so tired. She couldn't remember. _Then again, there are a lot of things you haven't told him -_

Her reverie was interrupted by the rat-tat-tat of assault rifle fire. She guessed Vega had found a few stragglers, drawn in like mindless moths to the pulse of the beacon. Time to move up the schedule.

Gingerly, she knelt down beside the device and thumbed on the small power drill in her field tool. She held her breath as the metal casing of the D-438 began to curl into shavings, praying not to see a spark. The resistance gave way with a jolt as she pierced the shell wall. Her eyes immediately began to sting from the fumes of the potent chemicals inside.

"Shepard... any chance on an ETA?" The stress had definitely crept further into Garrus' voice, and all traces of humour had vanished. "I've got long range visual on a large group heading our way. I think we've got a Banshee on the ground."

Shepard forced herself to continue drilling the second hole instead of going for her gun on instinct. "Three minutes. Just hold on." After the second hole was finished, she rapidly threaded the makeshift fuselage inside both canisters. It took more energy than she cared to admit to keep her fine motor movements sharp, thanks to the tremors that began running down her arms. She carefully wrapped each wire around the ammo block set near one of the device's struts.

"Shepard! I might need an assist up here!" Vega's radio transmission was accompanied by another round of echoing gunfire, coming from somewhere higher in the tunnel.

"On my way. Hold tight." She gave the setup one last glance before turning and running out down the tunnel, pulling her Carnifex off her hip. She wondered if it was an appropriate moment to appeal to a higher power, if she'd been the type. Finding herself in a life or death situation and knowing she was the only one who could get herself out of it was nothing outside her day job description.

Knowing that one of her team was out there though, without her support, pinned down and minutes from being swarmed... well. She wasn't as familiar with that feeling. And it wasn't one she wanted to get accustomed to. The list of people Shepard couldn't afford to lose was a short one, but Garrus was on it.

And in the rare moments she got honest with herself, she knew he was closer to the top of that list than she could ever really admit.

She found Vega close to the surface, sandwiched against a wall and leaning out to fire around a corner of the tunnel. She could hear the screeches of husks as they shuffled almost single file into his crosshairs. Together, they made swift work of the last few, and made a break for the exit over their twitching bodies. Shepard wondered how badly the beacon interfered with whatever little intelligence they had left, and hoped it was enough to turn the tide in their favour if for some reason they had to fight their way back to the shuttle.

They emerged back into the daylight, and saw that the galeforce winds had pushed the cloudbank that had threatened them all day right over their heads. Shepard felt the first few droplets hit the back of her skull like tiny hailstones.

"Aw shit, not rain. Let's get the hell out of here, Commander." Vega lifted his forearm to shield his face. "I'll watch for husks, just set that thing to blow."

Shepard flattened herself under a partial overhang for some shelter, and squinted down at her omni screen. "Alright. Garrus, Joker, stand by for signal drop."

She lifted a finger to tap in the number.

And paused.

She murmured something indistinct. Almost simultaneously, three male voices asked her to repeat her last. Vega was quickly reoccupied by the appearance of a husk on top of the ridge they'd descended, and he began to fire in short bursts above their heads. The rain was starting to come down in earnest now, making the delicate golden grass wobble around their knees.

"I said, I didn't memorise the det code."

Vega stopped firing to stare at her, the shock naked on his face. Shepard suddenly couldn't look at him.

She looked down at her omnitool instead, willing the simple string of digits to materialise. But they wouldn't come. Her head was buzzing and ringing with white noise, and no matter how desperately she searched in the molasses, there were no numbers.

She stepped forward and looked up at the sky, feeling the fat raindrops make indentations on the skin of her face. She didn't know how to react, what to say. If there was one thing she'd always been able to depend on even more than she depended on her rifle, it was her wits. People called her a good leader, but she'd never done anything but trust her own abilities. They'd never let her down like this before, and suddenly her confidence, once an unshakable object, was slipping through her fingers like a handful of sand.

Garrus made a strange sound, the sigh of someone who had been denying the inevitable but expected it anyway.

Like he knew she would crack one day. Like it was just a matter of time.

In the background of his comms, she heard the droning voices of the militia soliders issuing commands. Their shouts were interrupted by the terrible sound of elcor screams, something close to cattle in severe distress. Shepard knew the husks had arrived. They should have been safely off the ground by now. They were about to die because of her failure.

_Garrus _was about to die because of her failure.

A Hornet transport could hold about thirty bodies at capacity. Times that by three, and they had perhaps a minute before they were swarmed. The ruthless calculus of war was a turn of phrase with so many horrifying applications.

One minute. Not enough time to run down, reset the charge, and get back to the surface.

But maybe just enough time to put a bullet through the whole damn thing.

"Vega! Hold your position! I'm going back in!" Shepard unholstered the Viper from her shoulder, ducked her head against the rain and sprinted into the black, yawning maw of the tunnel for the second time.

"Commander! Wait -" Several fresh husks appeared from behind the ridge and Vega groaned in frustration, dropping to his knee to fire.

A sick, burning feeling was circulating in her veins. The pale figure in the forest turned to her and began to laugh. She upped the pace, breath coming in harsh pants, strands of wet hair sticking in her eyes. She'd just endangered the lives of her crew and countless civilians. That was nothing new, but before, she'd always had a good reason. Calculated risks, optimal rewards.

She'd never put lives at risk through sheer ineptitude before. She barely knew the meaning of the word.

"Shepard, what the hell are you doing!" Garrus shouted down her ear.

"No time," she gasped, rounding a corner at a sprint, her torchlight careening wildly. "I'll just shoot the charge."

"Are you crazy! You'll be too close!" he replied with harsh urgency.

"You've got seconds before you're overrun," she responded inbetween pants. "I have to destroy this thing _now._"

"What? You can't risk yourself like that!" In the background, Shepard could hear an overlapping chorus of low, fearful moaning. "You can still get back to the surface to detonate. We've still got time! Dammit Vega, _stop her!_" His voice was cracking with a kind of furious desperation. Twice, three times she heard the Black Widow fire.

"Fall back to the shuttle! I'm putting those ships in the air!" she shouted. A stitch opened up along her ribcage as she half-slid, half-ran down the incline.

"Shepa – get those people back into the ships and lock the doors! Reinforce north and east! - Shepard, _don't do this!_"

She rounded the final corner. She could see the telltale glint of the machine through the gloom of the cavern ahead, taunting and unchanged. That gunmetal tripod was now the symbol of her incompetence, and she was awash with anger just at the sight of it.

She swung her Viper up to her shoulder and took aim through the doorway to the cavern. The prone mortars were big as melons in her scope.

"Die, you son of a bitch," she murmured, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

><p>'butter bar' - slang used by enlisted personnel for officers<p>

'getting smoked' - being called out for punishment, usually in front of other crewmembers

SECNAV - naval military police

MRE - Meals Ready to Eat (used by military in the field)

Señora de Guadalupe - a hispanic term for the Virgin Mary

Ese - hispanic term similar to 'bro' or 'mate'

Sometimes, like every other writer ever, I have a hard time coming to the keyboard and putting down the story I've got in my head. Every review is a burst of fresh energy that makes it that much easier to write. Cheers to each and every one of you guys who puts down those few words of encouragement. Next chapter will be a good one if you're a Garrus/Shep fan, I promise.


	3. Chapter 3

When she had been a child hopping from ship to ship with her parents, she'd had to learn how to be comfortable as a perpetual stranger. As Hannah Shepard began to prove her mettle on small operations in deep space, the more politically savvy of her superiors had recognised her value early and began to advance her career as a pet project, hoping to catch a tailwind for their own promotions. As a result, the Shepards were repeatedly uprooted from and plunged into new communities all over the galaxy while she'd been young. Occasionally her mother had been stationed planetside but never long enough that she'd ever acclimatised to the way a bed felt when it wasn't vibrating subtly with the purring of a drive core. She'd never attended civilian schooling for more than a few terms at a stretch, and even then her father had been prone to pulling her out of class for weeks when he'd felt her combat drills were getting too sluggish.

A few health officers and teachers had made rumbles over the years about raising a child in a nomadic lifestyle, but it had sharpened parts of Shepard she'd found immeasurably valuable once she'd joined up. She prided herself on her ability to slip into any social territory, no matter how tight-knit or distrustful of newcomers. It made settling into a new squad a piece of cake. Of course, she'd learned early that the new friends that had flocked to her (with the strange adoration that seemed to follow her like a faithful dog) would not keep pinging for very long after her mother got her marching orders or later, when she was reassigned herself. But it didn't matter, because wherever she went, there was a new set of people and Shepard could pull on a new set of people like old gloves. She'd never been the prettiest or most sociable kid, but given adequate time she could make just about anyone like her without expending much conscious effort. And when she moved on, or they did, she put in an equal amount of effort to stay in touch. Not that she didn't enjoy a beer with her old squaddies (pre-Akuze) or an academy chum that remembered her from Field Amputations class, but she never missed them when they weren't around.

Not until she'd been assigned to the Normandy, of course. Finding out what it meant to earn trust the hard way, to prefer her ragtag bunch over all others, to fear for their lives not just because they were valuable and honourable but because she _would_ miss them had been a steep learning curve. It had felt terrifying at the time, like she'd stepped into a river she'd forded a thousand times before and found a new riptide dragging her under.

Now, she couldn't imagine getting through this waking nightmare without them. But she was still a product of her upbringing, and her past hadn't included much practice in repairing the trust of those she felt she'd let down. In fact, she struggled to think of anyone less qualified for the task. It was a thought made infinitely more daunting by the fact that she was yet to regain trust in herself. How was she supposed to relearn something that had once been as primal a part of her psyche as her name, or gender? Where, in the recesses of consciousness, was loyalty to oneself located?

Shepard put down the tweezers she'd been using to repair a docking station on the Destiny Ascension. She held up the piece she'd been absently jamming into place under the magnifying glass attached to her desk. It was mangled beyond recognition; she'd be lucky if she could salvage it even under a soldering iron. She sighed, pushing the whole lot to the other side of her desk and leaning back in her chair, rubbing her eyesockets with the heels of both hands. She'd been attempting to compose a report for a Crucible team's rendezvous with Volus emissaries in about thirty six hours, and every distraction was proving welcome. She had no idea how to sound competent in the complex, legalese speech patterns of the Volus, and she was pretty sure the prices they were charging the Alliance for access to their platinum mines in the Skyllian Belt were staggeringly exorbitant. EDI had offered a few hours ago to write the whole thing on her behalf, which Shepard had refused and was now deeply regretting.

Of course, these Volus reports had always been Garrus' job in the past. No one else knew how to handle them quite like a turian. _Maybe I could just invite him up, pretend everything is normal_._ He'd put his feet on the coffee table, I'd sit on the bed, we'd work through the night like nothing had happened - _

As though on cue, her omnitool beeped, reminding her to take a fresh pill of duroxephel and change out her bandages. Shepard couldn't help a smile at her own expense. Pretend everything was normal? Sure, and while they were at it, maybe they could pretend they were stereotypical marines and count scars over a few backslaps. Maybe they could start a tally for the ones he'd recieved on her behalf. Maybe they could pretend she was a tax clerk and he was the Rachni princess too.

She stood slowly, dull pain scraping over her ribs like butter-substitute over toast. Even in the darkest moments she'd fought through on her two previous Normandy tours, any crisis felt controllable as long as she had her crew. Now, right when she needed composure the most, she felt like all her threads of control were fraying, ready at any moment to snap and float off into space. She felt worse than incompetent. She felt alone.

There was a murmur at the door, which she only heard thanks to Cerberus. Shepard debated ignoring them for a moment, then caught a glance of the datapad holding the barely begun report on her desk.

"Come in!" Shepard called, thumbing off the door lock on her omni.

Liara and Kaidan's heads turned in unison as the door opened. "How did you - " Kaidan began.

Shepard sat on the edge of her desk and tapped an ear, smiling ruefully. "Courtesy of our favourite philanthropist, remember?"

"We didn't mean to disturb you, Shepard," Liara said apologetically.

"Well, you're here for something, unless you're using my doorway for a secret meeting."

They spoke up at the same time, hands waving and heads shaking. "Nothing like that -" "Certainly _not_ - "

Shepard raised her eyes to the ceiling and smiled. "Just come in, for god's sake. You're not disturbing anything productive."

Liara gave Kaidan a scowl before walking forward and placing a hand over Shepard's forehead. "How are you feeling today? Feverish? Dr. Chakwas told me humans with nanotech mods can be prone to fever spells."

"I'm fine, Liara," Shepard said firmly, pulling her hand down into her own. "You don't need to keep checking up on me like this."

"She's just worried about you. All of us are." Kaidan palmed the door closed before leaning against the wall opposite, crossing one ankle over the other. Shepard couldn't help admiring his beautiful body, as was her habit. He looked a little more run down than usual, which concerned her. He'd been the one with the heaviest load dumped on his shoulders while she and Garrus had been incapacitated. "We want to make sure you're recovering alright. You're up here on your own a lot now, you know," he continued.

"Yeah, well." Shepard sighed. "I'm not exactly keen to let the enlisted see me wobbling around the CIC like their grandmother in a strong head wind. But you're right, I need to start making appearances below deck again."

"That's not what he was implying!" Liara exclaimed. She shot the Major another sharp glance. "_Were_ you, Kaidan?"

Kaidan pinched the bridge of his nose. "All I meant was, there's no reason Shepard couldn't be back on deck if she felt well enough. No one's going to think less of you for actually needing a break now and then. In fact it'll probably relieve a few of them, finding out you're made of flesh and blood."

Shepard put a hand to her ribs and grimaced. "All too mortal, unfortunately."

Kaidan hummed. "Could have fooled me, the way you've been acting," he said with a hint of irritation. Shepard leaned forward, ready for an argument, when she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"But _only_ if you feel well enough, Shepard," Liara interjected smoothly, defusing the moment. "You can't push yourself before you've recovered."

Shepard looked up into the concern written in capital letters on the asari's face. She wished she could tell them what her real fear was; that eventually she was going to have to look into the faces of the people who had once respected her beyond question, and see doubt. Or even worse, pity. The thought sickened her.

But she couldn't tell that to Liara or Kaidan. The former because she'd deny it, of course, and become twice the mother hen she already was. The latter because... well, she didn't really know where Kaidan was on the spectrum of friendship these days. She'd felt an unpleasant sort of relief when he'd ended it on Horizon, like she'd finally been able to pull out a tooth that had been aching since she 'woke up' with Miranda shouting in her ear. But now he'd returned, and she noticed a strange sort of hope in his eyes when he thought she wasn't paying attention. That, coupled with his skyrocketing career and all the subtle changes of character that came with it left her feeling a little off-kilter whenever he was around. She wished she could reset the clock on their relationship to a simpler time, but she'd been wishing that a lot lately and it hadn't come true yet.

"Shepard?" Kaidan inquired quietly.

She blinked, coming back to the present. "Sorry, sorry. What did you say?"

"I said I've got some new intel from Alliance we should discuss when you've got a moment."

"Urgent?"

He shook his head. "It's bottom shelf stuff. A few batarians making noise on the Citadel about harassing Earth refugee tenements, other odds and ends." He glanced at Liara. "It can wait. Can I... come up later?"

Shepard's brow furrowed. "We should go over it now, make sure we don't need to divert course - "

"It's nothing, really," Kaidan interrupted, making a placating gesture. He rubbed the join of his neck and shoulder a few times. "More an excuse to get up from my desk and come see you."

She didn't know how to interpret that statement, and diverted her eyes towards her lazily drifting fish. He laughed, a little more forced than usual. "Well, I'm going before I get in any more trouble from your nurse. I'll ping you later, Shepard." He exited hastily, the door closing behind him before she could get out a goodbye.

She expelled a sigh through her nose. If she had any spare emotional stength these days she would have confronted him long ago over his confusing behaviour. But, like just about everything else in her life, it was buried and insignificant somewhere deep in the gnarled forest that was The Mission. She couldn't call it a war, she'd been in those and survived unscathed. Others preferred biblical drama and called it the apocalypse, the reckoning of sins, but she couldn't stand the implied finality. So it was The Mission, and nothing else mattered anymore. She had no idea how to find her way back out of that black and red forest even if by some miracle they succeeded, or if she even could. She could only stare blankly after Kaidan's retreating form, mute and incapable of summoning the desire to follow.

"Shepard... let me help you change your bandages." Liara spoke softly, like she was speaking to a tear-streaked child sitting in a C-Sec waiting room. Shepard swallowed down the irrational urge to shout at her, try to agitate the temper Liara was keeping so perfectly tucked away in her presence these days. But she'd learned her lesson on that front. She knew Liara well enough to know this was just how she showed she cared, even if some days Shepard felt smothered under her doting.

"Alright," Shepard murmured, and began unbuttoning the shoulder on her dress blues. Liara helped her to slowly peel off the coat, and she winced as her collarbone jostled.

"You know he still has feelings for you, don't you?" Liara said with a nod towards the door as she carefully laid the uniform over the back of the desk chair. Shepard didn't answer, occupying herself with the cuff fasteners on her undershirt. Liara touched a finger to her chin as she moved closer and began pulling at the ties on her high, starchy collar. "Don't be obtuse. You know he does. What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing," Shepard said sharply. "He's the one who ended it. If he wants to say something to me, he can come to me and say it. I've got more important things to worry about right now."

Liara didn't comment, merely raised her finely arched brows and lifted the hem of her shirt. Shepard obligingly raised her arms and let her pull the garment over her head. It joined the overcoat on the back of the chair, and Shepard lowered her arms slowly, feeling her sternum contract with fissions of pain. The mediweave pads covered large swathes of her abdomen and chest. Thanks to Chakwas' expert stitching, the wounds were healing over quickly, and the doctor had predicted they would only leave mild scarring. She had tried to argue she didn't need the bandages after a few days, but had been pinned down and browbeaten by Liara and Specialist Traynor, who had insisted she follow the doctor's orders.

With a deft touch, Liara began peeling away the adhesive coverings. Tight, shiny skin was beginning to form around the lip of the worst scratches. Shepard ran a finger gingerly over a hard scab. She'd have some lifelong souvenirs of this event every time she looked down at her stomach, which didn't please her much. Normally she treasured her worst scars, but then again, normally she was proud of how she earned them.

"I didn't just come here to help you with this today," Liara spoke up suddenly, as she began stripping the protective plastic off the fresh sheets of mediweave she'd pulled from Shepard's bathroom. "I've got something for you."

"Oh, you finished the memory box? I really hope you didn't put anything else in about me, it was bad enough as it was."

"No – well, yes, it's finished, but that's not it. It's... something else. Something I think you might like better."

Shepard helped her smooth down the sheet over her midsection, resealing the wounds once more. As little as she liked the bandages, it felt good when the cuts disappeared from view. "You should give up this Shadow Broker racket and go into vid dramas. You're the master of dangling hooks," she said to the top of Liara's head, who was kneeling to reach a section refusing to bend over the stitches.

Liara shot her a filthy look. "Sarcasm is one of the universal traits of lesser species, you know."

"I think underdeveloped humour is just a universal trait of the asari, actually," Shepard mumbled to herself. Liara stood up with pursed lips, pushing rather less gently than before on a shoulder. Shepard obediently turned around to let her access the bandages across her back. She leaned forward, knuckles on the desk, staring absently through her model display window at the old Normandy helmet on her bedside table. For a few minutes, the room was filled with nothing but the rustling of plastic and the unsticking of adhesive strips.

Eventually, Shepard broke the silence. "Liara?"

"Mm?"

"Do you think I'm still fit for this job?"

Shepard heard an indignant huff. "What a stupid question."

"No, I mean it." Shepard turned around, half a bandage flapping free off her back. "Remember when you asked me to tell you how I was really feeling after we stormed the Shadow Broker ship, and not just what I told the crew? Be as honest with me now as I was with you then."

Liara was silent for a moment, looking down at her wrists, where Shepard had clutched them tightly. Slowly, she turned her hands over to slide her fingers through the other woman's.

"Please, Liara." Shepard gave their joined hands a little shake. "It's important. Just say it."

The doctor looked up, and met Shepard's eyes. There was a depth in that stare that gave Shepard a tiny prickle across the back of the neck. There was anger there, but distant. Not directed at her.

"I can't see the future, Shepard. I have no idea if we'll build the Crucible in time, if you'll rally the armies of galaxy behind you to any end, if anything you're doing will give the Reapers a moment's pause. The only thing I'm sure about is you're the only one with a chance."

Shepard closed her eyes and leaned forward, resting her forehead on Liara's shoulder. Liara unclasped one of their hands in order to reach up and tenderly pat her hair. "You're fit for this mission, Shepard, because it's not the mission that gives me hope. It's you." She sighed, sending gusts of warm air down her back. "And now you've made a mess of your bandages. Turn around and let me fix them up."

Shepard huffed a laugh into her friend's shoulder before obliging. She mulled over the asari's words in her head, willing them to become an internal truth. Try as she might though, she couldn't shake the heavy spiderweb that had crept into her thoughts since that day on Dekuuna.

"Done, at last!" Shepard felt a light tap on the corner of a medi strip. "Here, put your clothes back on. I want to show you what I've brought."

Shepard began pulling on her officer garb as Liara moved down to the couch, flashing her a smile. She began buttoning with less care than usual, curious despite herself. "Going to tell me what it is, or still milking the suspense?"

"Just come sit down here, by me."

"To the last drop, then." Shepard loosely pulled her coat on and joined her, easing down onto the cushion with only a small amount of wincing.

Liara pulled out a portable holo-projector and set it on the table. Pressing it on, a blank square field jumped up in front of their faces. Liara was glancing at Shepard with an almost nervous smile, and Shepard couldn't help wondering how the powerful creature she'd seen only moments before could still oscillate so rapidly into the uncertain young maiden she'd first met in a mining shaft.

"We were going to save this for your birthday. I know it's an important human custom to exchange physical gifts on certain days in the Earth calendar, but we thought – well, me mostly – that it might be more useful to you now. Not that it's a strictly _useful _gift I have to say, except from perhaps a psychological perspective -"

Shepard held up a hand to interrupt the stream of nervous chatter. "Who's 'we'?"

"Me, Tali and Kaidan. Even Wrex helped a little. And... Garrus, in the beginning." Liara twisted her hands, mouth twitching in a half-grin, worrying the skirt of her envirosuit almost to shreds.

Shepard put aside the depressing thoughts that name conjured and took pity on Liara. It wasn't her fault that mentioning her XO seemed to give every room a tense atmosphere these days. The whole crew knew they'd been avoiding each other and they seemed just as keen to avoid broaching the subject in her presence. She gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile and linked her hands behind her head, spreading her knees in what Vega had called a 'Marine sprawl'.

"So, let's see it then. Enough milking."

Liara thumbed another button on the base of the device and sat back, spine straight and hands in her lap.

An image began to appear on the blank field. It took a moment to load, but Shepard would recognise the distinctive colours of a salarian matriarchal shawl anywhere. It was weaved in the pattern of the salarian genome, as was customary on their gifts to alien races, as a subtle sort of reminder of their genetic superiority. A classic backhanded salarian gift, but only given in cases of mutual respect. That tatty shawl had hung in her mother's office (wherever that happened to be) for as long as Shepard could remember. The picture finally resolved into a holo her father had taken on the day she left for boot camp at eighteen. They were standing in the office, her mother's arm around her shoulder and gripping tightly as a gawky Shepard grinned into the lens. There was a grim set to her mother's jaw she didn't remember seeing on the day. Shepard's ear-length hair was falling into her eyes – she'd given herself an awful but enthusiastic haircut a few days before shipping out.

"Where did you find this?" Shepard breathed, hands coming slowly off her head.

"Your mother was also a contributor. Quite a job to sort through it actually, I didn't expect Admiral Shepard to be the kind of woman who kept reams of holos and vids of her daughter on hand."

Shepard motioned sideways, indicating the next picture in the series. The image changed to a holo during her specialised field training. It was a shot Shepard hadn't even known had been taken at the time. She was standing in the middle of a rope-and-wire course, wet, covered almost completely in mud and getting smoked out by a drill sargent who looked on the verge of bursting a significant blood vessel. Whoever had shot the picture had obviously taken it from a safe distance.

"Do you know who took that one? Glyph pulled it from a disused server on the GalaxNet network. It had probably been posted and forgotten years ago." Liara was still searching Shepard's face nervously for a reaction.

Shepard shook her head. "I have no idea," she said vaguely, eyes glued to the image of the red-faced instructor. "I can't even remember what I was getting screamed at for. Wasn't the only time that happened."

Liara chuckled, and moved her hand for the next slide. Shepard put a hand on her shoulder, turning away from the screen. "Why did you do all this?"

"It wasn't that much trouble." The asari averted her eyes. "I _am_ the Shadow Broker, you know. Hunting up visual evidence of people's lives is three-fifths of my job these days."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Liara sighed. "Because... because you're unhappy, Shepard. It's painful to watch. We wanted to remind you what your better memories looked like. Perhaps remind you of the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel."

Shepard swallowed. It still took her by surprise how selfless real friendship was. She figured that was probably a good thing. The more she was shocked by it, the less she took it for granted. She struggled to form an eloquent sentence to express how she felt. All she could do was squeeze the doctor's shoulder repeatedly, nodding over and over like a bobbing child's toy. That seemed to express enough to the asari, who smiled and touched fingertips to her cheek.

"I'm pleased you like it. Now, let's look at the rest." She swiped her hand in the air.

A snowy hillside. Noveria, probably. There was splatters of geth internal fluid mingling with spots of mud kicked up by the wheels of the Mako all over their armour.

"Oh, goddess, I forgot this one was still in there. I'm sorry, I'll -" Liara made to send the picture off the screen. Shepard's arm shot out and grabbed her wrist in midair.

They were side by side, their rifles held akimbo in the crook of their elbows. He had an arm resting on her shoulder, using her as a kind of leaning post. She looked like she was in mid-sentence, pointing something out to him in the valley below. The sun was low in the sky, casting a bright red wash over everything it touched. That must have been a rare sunset; Shepard couldn't remember many times the planet's sun had broken through Noveria's almost perpetual cloud cover.

Despite the fact they were covered in the bloody remains of a firefight and their muzzles were still faintly glowing, they looked relaxed. Almost... happy. As though figuring out routes through pockets of machine gun nests was their idea of a good time. They had known each other for about two months when the holo had been snapped, but to the uninformed eye they looked like old friends. Comrades. A sniper pair assigned together for years.

Shepard leaned forward, staring at his face. He looked so different without the lattice of scars over the right side of his head. Younger. A little brasher. Something about the way he held his gun, the way he was grinning out into the distance was faintly cocky. She remembered a time when she'd written notes about him in her crew files when they first met. 'Highly skilled, problems with authority, arrogance could be an issue.' She'd heard the way he talked down to Tali and Wrex on occasion when they thought she wasn't listening on those long elevator rides on the Citadel. He'd been so sure in his worldview, so _turian_ in his thinly veiled digs about quarian transience or the 'krogan problem'. But a lot of that had crumbled away over time to reveal a young turian who didn't really know where he fitted in the universe and used a hotheaded temper to cover it up. Shepard could relate. She'd had trouble accepting the mold that had been cast for her too sometimes.

They'd talked so much in those early days. Hours and hours cleaning the Mako, or polishing the Normandy's armoury, or just walking aimlessly on the Citadel under the pretense of buying supplies. She found herself telling him things she hadn't even admitted to herself. He was the first to hear about her growing attraction to Kaidan, and she heard the whole sorry story behind Dr. Saleon during one long session at the rifle range. But they talked with equal interest in simpler things, like turian sociology or how to assemble a radio with only one short wire and old datapads (which she had later proved to him was possible despite his doubts).

Now, it had collapsed into shambles. In a flash, Shepard could see a potential future, one where they somehow survived the Reapers. Maybe they'd come back to a point where they could stand in the same room without pain, but something would always be different from the easy brotherhood they felt before it all went to shit. They'd go their separate ways as their respective governments found different duties for them, and at first the emails would be thick and fast. But they'd slow to a trickle until eventually they were talking only on occasion, nodding across the room at military functions.

And then one day he'd send her a different picture, with his arm on a different girl's shoulder. Turian. Tall, stern, beautifully sharp and graceful. He'd look nervous in the holo, not sure where to put his hands. He'd write something like, 'she's different'. They'd invite Shepard to speak at their bonding ceremony, which of course she couldn't refuse. She'd see his father and sister there, hugging his new wife and he'd find whatever corner she'd hidden in, his eyes asking 'have I done well?', wanting her approval but unsure how to phrase it, and of course she'd give it, how could she not, he would be bursting with happiness under the nerves.

Then she'd get another holo in a few years time from in front of their small but clearly well-appointed house on Palaven, as befitted a senior advisor in the turian government from an old Cipritine family. He'd be rolling on the silvery grass holding a small silvery turian and he'd still look out of his depth but adjusting. And so, so happy. And then, knowing once and for all that the double-act was over, she'd drink until she could somehow function, maybe settle down with a quiet man from a colony out near the Veil or maybe join an underground fighting ring on Tuchanka, but above all try damn hard for the rest of her life to forget what it felt like standing next to him on that hillside on Noveria.

"Shepard? Shepard, what's wrong?" Liara was shaking her.

She'd bowed forward without realising it, elbow on a knee and head propped on a fist. Her eyes had been screwed shut like she'd been trying to stave off pain until endorphins kicked in. "Nothing. Don't worry," she said quietly, unclenching her hand and sitting up.

Liara didn't look convinced. "Maybe I should call up Dr. Chakwas."

Shepard waved her off, standing from the couch and doing her best to look fully put together once again. "No. I'm fine, just a little worn out from the duroxephel. Listen, do you mind if I look through the rest later? I've gotta get back to this Volus report."

Liara stood, still looking concerned. "Of course. But you should rest for a while, try to get some sleep. Let me help you with that report -"

"Commander Shepard, are you available?" EDI's voice piped over the room's speakers.

Shepard's eyes flicked by reflex to the doorway, still half expecting a blue ball to pop up. She'd been appalled when she found out the Alliance had removed that component of EDI's software. "Go ahead, EDI," she responded.

"Admiral Hackett requests your immediate presence in the comm room."

"Regarding?" Shepard was already moving towards the door, doing up her buttons as she went.

"He wouldn't say. It is highly sensitive information, for your ears only."

"I'm on my way." She tapped off the lights and stood aside to let Liara pass.

The picture still hovered on the screen, a square of blurry light in the pitch black room. Shepard gave it one last glance before the door snapped shut in front of her nose.

* * *

><p>Her stomach dropped into her knees as she walked into the comm room alcove. He was definitely the last person she needed to see at the moment. She shuffled in behind him, trying to find as much space between them as possible. Hearing her walk in, his head picked up from the console he'd been fiddling with. The image of the young turian she'd just left in her room could not have been more separated from the turian who stood before her now. He looked burdened, twice his age. Weary at the sight of her. He nodded awkwardly, his thick splint making a strange bulge over his mandible, throwing his whole face out of symmetry. She returned the nod just as stiffly.<p>

"Listen, you might have to get out for a moment. Hackett just paged for me, something confidential," Shepard said, not looking at him.

"That's why I'm here. He paged me too."

Shepard met his eyes, brow furrowing. He gave a half shrug, gesturing to the holo display. She hit the button to reconnect the line to Hackett.

The admiral faded into view on the shaky blue lines, and he appeared to be pacing. That wasn't a good sign. Shepard remembered a few squad leaders who enjoyed pacing right before they prefaced a directive with 'you might want to call your family'. He looked up, noticing them.

"Good, you're both here. Alright, we've got a few things on the agenda and the ratio of good to bad news ain't pretty." His tone was matter-of-fact, but he'd leaned forward to grip the podium on his CIC as he spoke. Shepard's stomach contracted into a walnut-sized ball of fear. She straightened up into a parade rest.

"What is it, sir? What's happened?"

"First things first." The Admiral's gaze swung down to his boots for a moment before rising again, his mouth drawn into a tight line. "The footage of your little rumble got onto the wideband. It hit the Citadel networks about two hours ago and it's already spread as far as the Krogan DMZ."

Shepard felt the air pressure change in the small room, as though a port had been opened and precious oxygen was being suctioned away. A lead weight settled on her shoulders, and her rigid stance sagged. Dully, she heard Garrus making sounds of disbelief.

"That's impossible, Admiral Hackett," he retorted, a trace of anger under his words. "We gave the order to have the file deleted and removed from the ship's permanent record."

"Well, that's subsection B to the first round of bad news. The Normandy might be a leaky tub," Hackett answered heavily.

Garrus seemed confused by the human idiom, his translator unable to find a suitable match. "It means we've got an informant aboard," Shepard supplied, her voice turned dark and rough.

Garrus looked like he was about to launch a spirited rebuttal, but the Admiral held up a hand to head it off. "I'll give you my well-rounded opinion on that matter later, officers. We've got a bigger problem right now." He sighed as he touched the button on his screen to bring up a fresh row of notes.

"Over the last week we've had escalating reports of Cerberus skirmishes with turian refugee ships. Didn't think too much of it at first, and the turians always made sure Cerberus left with nothing but holes in their hulls to show for it. But it seems word got around on the low channels, and it turns out we got a few amateur demagogues along with the sheet-welders down in the Crucible factories. Human and turian mostly, but a few other races have found their own soapboxes. They've been raking up bad feeling for days now. We had a few minor scraps in hallways, but this vid leak seems to have brought the stew to a boil. We're potentially looking at a full-scale riot in some of the bigger housing barges." He shook his head, one hand on his hip and the other on his jaw, running over the stubble. "We all knew humans weren't the most popular kids on the monkey bars, but we've got no time to let this run its course."

Shepard felt a strange sort of disconnect, like the Illusive Man just had wandered into the war room and volunteered to dismantle Cerberus. This felt too surreal. "How... why are they fighting _now_? Over what, exactly? Do they have demands?" she questioned, trying to stick with the facts. The tangible was easier to piece together.

The Admiral threw his hands in the air and resumed his pacing. "Christ knows. Some of them still remember the Contact War. Some of them lost family to a Blue Sun or a Cerberus dog. Hell, some of them just want to put a fist in another man's eye if it'll make 'em feel better about the Reapers coming down on their heads. All we know is that work on the Crucible is grinding to a halt and we've got shit all to do but cool our heels down here."

Garrus' face was unreadable, his back straight. "I'll get word to the Primarch immediately, Admiral."

Hackett nodded. "Good man. But we still need an injection of positive human-turian press on the double. That's the next item on the agenda."

"Please say it doesn't get worse," Garrus said with a sigh, arms coming up to cross over his front.

"Afraid so. About one hour ago Cerberus had a successful foray. We've got three live bodies removed from a turian transport. No names yet, but they were probably some of the eggheads we just recruited for the Crucible. Fortunately, one of your boys stamped their ship with a long range tracker before Cerberus broke their umbilical. We know where they're going." Shepard could already guess the next words coming out of the admiral's mouth.

"We need you to get those people back. We're going to keep this news out of the wideband as long as we can, but we can't hold back the tide forever. If this got out, we're going to see a few low budget reenactments of Shanxi and probably not just on the work site. Lots of people in real tight quarters on the Citadel right now."

"Why were they taken, sir? What's the motive for Cerberus to kidnap turians? That's not their usual MO – what makes this group special?" Shepard inquired.

"Like I said, we've got no idea who the target was. It was a slapdash refugee boat leaving from Palaven in a hurry, which means we've got no official passenger record. All the VIPs still in Cipritine were shifted weeks ago. We just know it was carrying a load of specialist engineers out of Darant along with the usual civilians."

Garrus stiffened, his attention focusing. "Darant? Are you sure?" The Admiral nodded. "That's the prefecture my sister works in," Garrus said tightly. Shepard looked at his back, wishing she could offer some kind of reassurance that wouldn't sound completely hollow.

"When we know, you'll know. Best I can give you, son." Hackett began punching a string of numbers into a console. "Shepard, I'm patching you the coordinates to the planet the ship landed on about fifteen minutes ago. We caught a break there, looks like it's only a few hours light jump from your current position."

"Why not directly to Joker, sir?" Shepard asked as her omnitool beeped.

Hackett sighed, letting his hand drop away from the keyboard. "Until such time as you've gained sufficient evidence either way, every person aboard that ship is a potential leak. Start treating mission sensitive details like a virus that needs to be contained. _Especially_ about this. If you've got someone onboard in the Illusive Man's pocket and you announce this to your crew, you can bet your asses you'll have a warm welcoming party once you hit dirt."

Shepard shook her head, shifting her weight restlessly. "I know this crew better than the back of my hand. There's just no way we've picked up a mole."

The Admiral pulled down the brim of his cover, looking faintly tired. "I know you don't like it, Commander," he continued, a hint of steel in his voice. "But frankly, you're not currently in a position to challenge orders. Update me when you're back, and we'll start spraying you across every news bulletin as a saviour of the turian race with a damn fire hose. Hackett out."

The digitized image of the Admiral faded out of view. The tiny room suddenly seemed oppressively silent.

Shepard opened her mouth to fill the excruciating void with something, anything. "Been a long time since you couldn't put a human and a turian in the same room. Feels like the galaxy's gone mad, doesn't it?"

There was no answer. He continued facing the wall, unmoving.

"Look," she continued awkwardly into the silence. "I'm sure your family is alright. They were due to take a ship days ago, weren't they?"

Abruptly, he turned to leave. "I've got to speak to the Primarch," he muttered bitterly as he strode out into the war room.

Shepard watched him retreat, hearing his footsteps clanging through the metal bowl. She turned slowly back to watch the blinking lights on the dormant communicator, her face blank. She tried to put her mind to the task of what had to be done, the preparations to make. But all her concentration seemed to have followed him out the door. Spinning on a heel, she exited towards the bridge. As she left, she buried a fist into a nearby panel, leaving sparks and small dent behind.

* * *

><p>The shuttle bay was mercifully empty at this time of the Normandy's night-cycle. Her LOKI mech puttered around her heels, olfactory sensors working overtime on her trouser leg. She walked over to the large locker near the mods bench labelled 'Commander Shepard', and knelt down to key in a pin code. The lock slipped free with a beep, and she hoisted the lid upwards. Her armour had been stored neatly and expertly cleaned. She smiled, making a mental note to thank Steve for the gesture. The last time she'd seen this armour, she'd been shedding it in the back of the Kodiak in a furious rage, flinging the components around the shuttle's interior with enough force to chip the paintwork. Garrus hadn't been treating his suit much better, pausing in his shouting tirade about her reckless self-endangerment only long enough to pull his chest piece over his head. It had been around that time Shepard had sent a right hook for his jaw that probably would have left lesser men in brief comas. The smile slipped off her face.<p>

She began pulling out the different sections and laying them on the bench, running her fingers over the scuffs and scorch marks. This particular set had been with her for a while now, upgraded here and there when she had the rare time to fiddle with it. She'd added a shoulder piece that stiffened the shooter's aim while prone only a few weeks ago. She and Garrus had designed and cobbled it together late one night down here, trying to take their minds off their respective burdens with something intricate and time-consuming. They hadn't talked much, just a comment or two as they passed the needle nose pliers between each other.

Shepard sighed. She wished every damn thing didn't remind her of him. It would make this period of mutual avoidance a lot easier to bear.

Her LOKI yipped. When she turned to see what had gotten its attention, she saw Tali walking towards her out of the elevator. "Shepard. What are you doing down here?" The quarian was the closest she ever came to 'undressed', her hood and toolbelt removed for bed.

Shepard stood up. "Just... thought I'd give my suit a polish. Almost forgotten what it looks like, been so long since I wore it."

Tali clucked her tongue. "You are such a bad liar, Shepard. Thank Keelah you're not a quarian, you'd never survive."

Shepard rubbed a hand on the back of her neck, somewhat embarrassed at being seen through so quickly. "I can lie pretty well to humans, you know."

"Humans are the easiest liars to spot." Tali wandered over and began absently examining Shepard's Kuwashii visor. "All that body language, you might as well be a circus performer. No privacy at all!"

"Yes, well - " Shepard began as she plucked the visor from the quarian's hands. "Lucky our perception is dull enough to match. What are _you_ doing down here?"

"I saw you through the engineering window when I came back for my book." She held up a data chip. "You're up to something, I can see. What's going on, are you running away?" Her tone of voice was light, playful, nothing about it seemed like she was prying for information.

Shepard tried to sound equally casual. "I was thinking about taking a little shoreleave, that's all. Maybe a day or two."

"Please, Shepard." Even though she couldn't see it, it was abundantly obvious Tali was rolling her eyes. "You're worse than Liara trying to pretend she doesn't have Broker cameras in the quarian Admiralty chambers. Now, what are you really doing? Something for Hackett?"

Shepard gave herself a mental shake. This was _Tali_, for god's sake. Her sweet little Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. There was no possible way she'd betray a ship full of people she considered a second home. There weren't many people above suspicion, but she was definitely one of them.

"Actually... yes. But I can't tell you the details. It's just going to be a quick in and out job. I'm hoping to be back before 0600 tomorrow."

Tali put down the shin guard she was fondling and stared at her. "In and out job? But I thought it would just be a meeting - you're not fit for the field yet!" she exclaimed.

"I'm fit enough for this. You've seen me fight with far worse than a few banged up ribs," she said lightly.

Tali, however, was not to be dissuaded. "Does Dr. Chakwas know? You're going to do something horrible to yourself, I know it. That useless human body might as well be made of – of soft chicken eggs!"

"I see you've been eating breakfast with the British women again."

"_Don't_ joke with me Shepard," Tali said indignantly. "I'm going to go wake up Dr. Chakwas right now!" She started striding back towards the lift doors.

Shepard caught the quarian's arm. "Tali, Tali. It's alright, really. I'm going to be fine. The armour is just a precaution. I'm picking a few people up and then I'm coming straight home to bed. I promise." She smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way. Tali paused, and Shepard could almost feel eyes boring down on her from under the mask.

"Alright," Tali said slowly. "Back before 0600, then."

"I promise. Now, help me get all this back up to my room. And Tali -" Shepard turned her and put both hands on her shoulders, knees bending slightly to look her directly in the eye. "I'm telling the rest of the crew that me and Garrus have been asked to meet with the Volus for a resource negotiation, and you can't tell any of them different. This is a classified mission. Not even Adams, alright?"

Tali shook her head. "I don't like it, but... I won't say a word."

Shepard felt her heart warm towards the quarian girl. "Thanks, Tali'Zorah. Now, hold out your arms. I've got a nice bottle of quetzel with your name on it." The armour pieces began stacking in Tali's outstretched arms with clinks and bangs.

* * *

><p>The drinking had continued long after Tali left.<p>

She took another swig, using the other hand to swipe at the holo in mid air. A picture of Ash and Kaidan clambering over a Prime they'd downed on Feros, identical thumbs up. Another swipe. The day Tali left the Normandy to return to the Flotilla, pilgrimage a success. She was practically velcroed against Shepard in a full body hug, the Commander powerless to do anything except smile towards the camera. Another swig. The endless parade of familiar faces, caught for time immemorial in brief moments of happiness, were starting to blur.

Sometimes she wished she was someone different. A hapless refugee tucked somewhere in a crate on the Citadel. A stowaway on one of the recon ships heading to an uncharted planet. A person who could walk away from the trail of events that had led her into this position. She'd been trained as a solider and groomed as a leader since she could read and write. It had left little scope for sovereign decision making.

She swiped again. Thane and Samara playing a game of biotic chess.

But this... this relatively new emotion in her life kept her mired in place like weeds tangling around her legs. She had to do it for them. As broken and useless as she felt at times, she was all they had, and that meant she had to keep walking forward. Deeper into the forest, losing her way over and over.

She tipped the bottle, draining it. She groaned, dropping the empty container between her knees to the floor with a clatter. It burned down her throat, heavy and cloying. But the effect was good. She felt a shimmery mirage of her once unshakable confidence.

These were the times she'd usually wander down to the gunnery and talk to him. He'd ask why she'd drunk so much, she'd tell him she wasn't drunk, obviously.

Well, why the hell couldn't she do exactly that? Why couldn't she walk in certain parts of her own damn ship because of him? This was technically still an Alliance vessel. Her domain. She was the Commander, it should be him that avoided _her._

Her armour creaked as she stood up, swaying. Another pleasant side effect from the alcohol was that she couldn't feel her chest at all. She felt numb from the neck down. Invincible. Impervious to pain, physical and otherwise. And before she quite realised how she got there, she was standing in front of the gunnery door.

The faintest of alarm bells were ringing sweetly somewhere deep in the back of Shepard's mind, but she ignored them. She was the Commander_._ She punched the door lock.

He was sitting on a crate in full kit, head in his hands. His helmet sat by his feet, rifle propped up beside it. He looked up as she entered swaying slightly. His face was a mask of pain.

"Shepard." His voice was raspy and deep in his throat, like pebbles tumbling in a vent shaft. "It's Sol. They've got Sol."

She stared at him, the words sliding over her consciousness but not quite penetrating.

He continued on, barely audible. "I just heard from my father. They'd stayed behind to find a walking brace for her broken leg. The fools missed the first wave of refugee ships." He ran his talons over his scalp. "He put her on the one from Darant and took the one after himself. The ship just arrived at the Citadel and she wasn't on it." His hands fell uselessly into his lap, limp.

She blinked hard, trying to hang onto the thread of his words. "She's one of the kidnapped... ones? You can't know for s-suuure."

He tilted his head and looked at her properly for the first time since she walked in the room. "Are you drunk?" He stood up slowly. His voice was low and dangerous. "Have you gotten drunk less than an hour before we drop into Cerberus space?"

Shepard felt the air contract in her lungs, frozen in place. He walked forward, only inches separating them now. She could feel his body heat. The articulating plates on his one visible mandible rippled. "Answer me, Shepard," he said in a whisper.

A lick of fire burned up her chest, making her feel angry and stupid in equal measure. "Go fuck yourself, lizard," she growled.

As he slammed her shoulders against the bulkhead next to the door, a distant, disconnected part of her mind wondered what cruel twist of fate made closest friends the worst kind of enemies. That saying about shorter knives didn't just apply to stabs in the back, she decided. There were plenty you could see coming and were powerless to dodge. And sometimes the knife was in your hand and you had no idea how it got there.

"My sister is probably dead, you pathetic drunk!" he shouted, eyes flashing. "She's in Cerberus's hands because _I_ wasn't there to protect her, because I was _stuck_ here like I always am, making sure the galaxy's great hope doesn't throw herself in front of a bullet to save a varren! You better sober up fast because if she dies, we're through. I'll be off this ship tomorrow. Understand?" He shook her roughly. She shoved him off, sending him stumbling.

"You really think I won't be sharp as a tack by the time we land, Garrus? It's _me_. Wasn't that just be a given, that we expected each other to get the job done?" She flung her arms out and laughed, a horrible, distorted sound. "Poor broken down Shepard, can't take your eyes off her for a moment. She might do something crazy like value her team above her own life, god forbid!"

"Ugh, Spirits," he spat, backing away and looking disgusted. "Spare me your self-pity. Just go drink whatever humans drink to get sober."

Seeing that expression on his face, she felt all the fight leave her in a rush. Her arms came back to her sides with a clunk. "Let's not do this anymore. C'mon." She wished she could make her voice sound less defeated. Less pathetic.

The repulsion hadn't changed. "Do what, Shepard? Pretend you're fine? Pretend you're expendable? You used to understand that nobody else can do what you do. If you die, that's our hand played. We go home and pray until the Reapers finish the job. " He waved dismissively at her disheveled state, and turned away to pick up his helmet. "If you've forgotten how to value your life, then you've forgotten every sacrifice that's kept you alive. I've got nothing to say to that kind of person." His words thudded into Shepard's skull like tiny darts.

"It's - it's the mission. It's done something to me," she pleaded softly. Even to her own ears, it sounded pitiful. "I promise we'll find her -"

The helmet clicked into place. "Just get back to me when you're the Shepard I've always known." Even muffled, she could hear the sharp antipathy in his voice. "If she's gone for good, then don't expect me to risk whatever little life I have left for a sad alcoholic with a death wish."

She could see he was still in the gunnery, just five steps away, but he couldn't have felt more distant if there was a chasm of dark space between them. In a way, she felt more courageous than ever, now she knew beyond a doubt she had no chance. Empty, crushed, but courageous.

"I think I'm in love with you."

He froze, half bent down to pick up his rifle. Her heart thundered in her chest. The silence of the room was a vice around her throat.

"What?" he said quietly.

She slurred out the words again. She was both amazed and horrified at herself.

He leaned down the rest of the way and scooped up his gun. "You're drunk. Leave me alone, Shepard."

She watched his back for a few moments as he collapsed the Widow and dropped it into a field bag.

"Yeah," she said, touching the door lock. Her pace quickened with the sudden need to escape, and abandoning all dignity, she broke into a half-run. "Yeah, just drunk," she said to herself as she stumbled through the mess hall, bitter alcohol oozing slowly over her tongue.


	4. Chapter 4

_Dekunna, three Earth-standard weeks ago  
><em>

The volume of the explosion through the radio had him shouting in pain, releasing his grip on the stock of the Black Widow just long enough to clap a hand to his ear. The audio spectrum on his visor was a violent scribble of peaks and valleys. As the booms rolled to a close, there was a loud, discordant hum left in their wake. The sound pressed against his skull. All other noise was muffled, as though he'd been plunged deep underwater. He staggered into the side of the Kodiak in disorientation.

"Fearful; turian, are you injured?"

Garrus ignored the elcor arbalest who had come loping up to his side out of the lee of one of the nearby civilian cellars. The hum was already fading to a whine, and the sounds of his immediate surroundings began to filter back in; panicked elcor stampeding out of their underground hideaways into cargo bays of the evac transports behind him, their young crying out for parents who had boarded a different ship in the confusion. The metallic grinding of husks stumbling up the hill and through the ramshackle gate at the other end of the village, trampling the waving yellow grass into mulch. Snapping cords as teams to his left and right fired bolt after bolt from elcor-mounted ballistae into the approaching horde. The thin, high-pitched shriek of a Banshee as she drifted at the back of the mob, her unstable biotic energy distorting the air.

And the empty fuzz of his radio.

He looked up at the young soldier, who was still watching his face with the same placid, neutral expression all the rest of the elcor wore despite the carnage. A piece of shrapnel had embedded near his eye and the wound was oozing a trail of red blood. He watched it descend slowly, curving over the side of the fanned mouth. It was far too dark and glutinous to be mistaken for human blood. But to Garrus, these days, the colour red was associated with little else. Earth refugees in medic bays, dangling bags attached to their arms. The colour of Vega's face after a chinup contest. Scraps of pink limbs on a husk feeding pile. And of course, dead Alliance soldiers strewn on the battlefield.

His insides were going numb. Shepard had just done it again. Gotten herself killed where no one could help her. He felt inert, as though someone had thrown a switch and a bustling city block had suddenly gone dark.

The Banshee wailed in a deafening scream, seemingly having lost her patience. A gust of blue wind sent handfuls of husks flying, carving a path through the mass towards the vanguard. The elcor headbutted him roughly as the captain droned for him to return to the firing teams. Something shifted in Garrus, ejecting him back into reality. With an enormous exertion of will, he pushed aside the shock threatening to descend like a lead blanket. He knew the civilians cowering behind their line would die if he couldn't start functioning. _Training_, he told himself. He began repeating in a mantra the same words he'd drilled into his own squad on Omega. _Back to basics. Second by second_. _Keep thinking, keep moving, or you're all dead._

"Joke-" he tried. His voice was hoarse, stuck to his throat. He swung his rifle back up into his hand and shook his head, throwing off the suffocating fog. "_Joker, report!_" he shouted, and fell to a knee. Loud cracks ricocheted off the walls of the village square as the Black Widow fired, and the elcor captain let out a crow of relief.

"The... the signal is... oh christ, the Commander..."

"Concentrate, damn you!" Garrus snapped. The husks were halfway up the natural gauntlet formed by the close rows of houses, about two hundred metres from the elcor's entrenchment. The mines Garrus had ordered to be laid earlier were detonating in rapid succession, scattering chunks of grey bodies with sprays of dirt and smoke. But the writhing mass was reforming swiftly around the holes they formed, advancing onwards over corpses of their own. His hands were a blur, dropping target after target and reloading without pause.

"The signal is down," EDI interjected quickly. "The ships should be restored to full -"

"Time to leave!" Garrus interrupted with a shout, looking up from his scope towards the captain. "Tell those pilots to get in the air!" He turned towards the dormant convoy and waved an arm over his head in a rotating motion, pointing up. The ballistae teams paused in various stages of firing to look towards their superior, who began repeating Garrus' orders in a bellow. The Banshee screamed again, taking an angry swipe that left a gash in a nearby house the size of a skycar.

The ships arrayed behind their line thrummed to life. The first row of husks were close enough now for Garrus to see the sickly, glowing pulse of their internals. The shambling walkers on the periphery scraped along hand-plastered walls, the throng too large to fit in the narrow lane. At this range, his shots were taking down two husks with one bullet, but he was chipping at a boulder with a toothpick. Militiamen began abandoning their gear around him and galloping away, sending vibrations through the packed mud road and up through his legs. He continued firing until the last of the elcor had retreated back into the cargo bays and their doors began to roll down.

"Garrus, I can't raise Lieutenant Vega," EDI said. Her voice had a strange electronic stutter to it, like she'd been overtasked and had no resources left to eliminate the lag.

"On my way," he responded sharply. A final bullet into the chest of the Banshee stumbled her briefly. The contorted asari flung an arm outwards and a ball of concentrated energy hurtled down the street, air whistling in its wake. Clicking the safety on his Widow, he sprinted into the open back of the Kodiak and cast it aside with a clatter, hearing the biotic strike explode in the dirt behind him. He gripped the doorframe of the cockpit and vaulted into the pilot chair, too small for a turian to sit in normally. Punching the ignition and door close simultaneously, his other hand reached for the Predator he knew Cortez kept under the seat. Twisting uncomfortably, he braced one arm on the dash and levelled the pistol out through the open doorway. He could hear the grinding and rasping of the horde drawing closer.

"EDI, program their coordinates into the shuttle nav," he ordered tensely. It felt like the hatch was closing in slow motion.

A second's silence, then - "Done. Initiate autopilot routine."

The doors were almost drawn together. Garrus heard several bangs, like fists pounding on the Kodiak's metallic shell. He dropped the gun in the copilot chair and began typing into the haptic board, fingers flying on the keys. The thrusters kicked in with a roar, incinerating two lines of husks in their wake. The shuttle lurched forwards and upwards, shuddering under the added pressure of Dekuuna's gravity. As they finally began to ascend, Garrus heard the shriek of the thwarted Banshee, and the sickening noises as she began venting her fury on the surviving husks.

He fell back, short of breath, feeling his spurs mash awkwardly against the seat front. Vertigo tugged on his stomach as the shuttle rotated and picked up speed. Staring out the window, he saw the elcor ships settle into orbit trajectory, their jets spewing blue and green fire.

"Make sure Edictus' Claw and the Hieronym are aware of their inbound," he said, referring to two turian warfleets he knew were stationed near a mass relay on their flightpath. He watched as the transports rose higher and higher into the atmosphere until they were nothing but shimmering dots in the sky. "And tell Citadel Docking they've got a fresh wave of refugees arriving."

He knew EDI probably replied with something, but he didn't hear it. Despite his heart still pumping blood with thuds he could feel in his ears, he felt cold. Flat and lifeless grassland rolled out ad infinitum under the window, beyond his notice. A glance at the dash told him he was ten Earth-kilometres away from his destination, and he closed his eyes.

Ever since she'd descended on Menae with her usual knack for timing, the same old Shepard but not quite, a strange feeling had begun tickling the back of Garrus' mind. A phantom breeze on his neck. It was similar to the sensation he'd felt when he'd walked back into his squad's HQ on Omega and found it eerily silent. A glimpse of some future catastrophe whenever he found Shepard collapsed over a navigational console, her skin hanging loose from lack of nutrition and sleep. He'd said nothing when he'd begun walking the full length of the ship every two days, finding wherever she'd passed out and silently depositing her on her bed. He was afraid that giving his fears the physicality of words would turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And damn it, sometimes he just wanted to be selfish. To take strength from Shepard as a mythic figure like every other star-struck grunt on the ship. Ignoring her fragility made it so much easier to unload the weight of a galaxy onto her shoulders. He was no hero; he had no strength to bear grief other than his own while he waited to be told if his family had lived or died.

But he was a details man. It was a skill that had made him a good C-Sec officer and now made it impossible not to notice as his Commander, his closest friend, quietly abandoned life by degrees. He couldn't stop marking every change, every silent moment where she'd usually been ready with a witty backhander, every dead-eyed stare that had once surged with capability and intelligence. Sometimes when he caught her with her head in her hands, surrounded by mission briefs and mayday signals, he felt there were some theatres of war in which Reapers had already won. After all, if they could break Shepard's spirit, what hope was there for the rest of them?

It had only been a matter of time before he'd failed in his self-nominated duty; keep her alive, at any cost. The closing days of the galaxy would be ringing with the words; 'Shepard dies to save no one of great consequence, Reapers advance on all fronts.' On no news bulletin would there be a mention of a soldier who had slipped into despair for a reason other than ravaged planets and widespread genocide. One unnamed turian mourning the death of an alien rather than the death of his own civilization.

The numbness was starting to give way to an ache.

"Officer Vakarian." EDI's voice seemed strange. Too nasal. Too male. "Officer Vakarian, please respond."

He opened his eyes. The huge, void-like pupils of an elderly drell female stared back at him, two displaced black holes in a sea of grey and green scales. He murmured something incomprehensible, and the stare morphed into a glare. She indicated downwards with her chin. One of his elbows was wedged in her ribs, and his neck ached where his head had lolled onto her shoulder. He readjusted himself with a jump, apologising quickly. She rebuked him in that strange way unique to creatures with lips, pushing air out of her mouth with a _shhhhh_. She patted her mouth with all four of her mottled digits and repeated the sound. Glancing around the lowlit cabin, he saw that most of the inhabitants that lined the walls on hard, universal seating were asleep. Stars drifted in spatial pantomine outside square windows. Graffiti was scrawled on almost all available surfaces in various alien alphabets. An evacuation procedure was nailed to the wall opposite, with instructions repeated in the Citadel languages. Beneath it, his Commander was dozing, holding a kit bag to her chest as her head swayed with the subtle motions of the ship. He exhaled slowly, irrationally relieved.

Full awareness returned. He was on a public civilian shuttle, attempting to circumvent Cerberus detection of military incursion on their territory. Dekuuna was over. Now it was his sister he was expecting to arrive too late to save. As he watched Shepard shift in her sleep, he slowly drew the handles of his own bag sitting on the floor between his knees into a tight fist. His jaw locked, his teeth leaving pinpricks in his gums as he remembered her drunken ramblings in the gunnery. Anger had been trickling into his system since the day his father had missed their daily contact call, and now he was wading in it. Anger that shunted him into dark places, where assigning blame on others for his misery made perfect sense. The pleasant sensation of discovering he'd only been reliving that day on Dekuuna in a dream disappeared like a wisp of smoke.

"Last call Vakarian, are you reading this channel?" The tinny voice reappeared in his ear. "Always the same with these turian lunks. Haeena, attach a log on the next packet back to the humans, tell them I've checked the ID code three times already-"

Garrus gave a sideways glance at the drell, who was still watching him with narrowed eyes. He turned into the corner made by his seat and the beige interior wall, touching his omnitool with a tap. "This is Vakarian," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice below the general hum of the ship.

He heard a muffled 'finally!' before a vidlink request chimed loudly from his forearm. His fellow passenger looked on the verge of shushing him ostentatiously again, so he stood and slung his bag over one shoulder, making his way to the stairwell connecting the floors of the shuttle and sliding the door closed behind him. The cheap fluophosphate lighting buzzed overhead. He touched his visor as he dumped his bag under a tattered poster for the latest Blasto movie, hearing the deconstructed pieces of his rifle clink together. The projected image of a salarian appeared over his left eye. He was no particular expert on salarian emotion, but if he had to hazard a guess, he'd say this one looked bored.

"Garrus Vakarian, this is the Special Tasks Group Intelligence Division contacting you on behalf of -" He looked down to consult a screen. "Admiral Hackett of the Alliance Navy." He began to speak in a rapid monotone, eyes roaming lazily over text just to the left of the screen. "We have been instructed to provide you with data pertaining to your current operation. You have been cleared for level four privileges, including access to limited STG ground services, satellites and periodic updates on your nominated interests. I am obligated to remind you of Charter 718-42 under Citadel Council rulings of Citadel-cycle 5829, which renders you liable for prosecution should you use STG services for financial, commercial, or otherwise mercenary gain, disclose classified information to individuals without clearance, or use STG intelligence in the pursuit of military action against salarian civilian settlements. Please acknowledge in the affirmative if you understand these conditions." The whole spiel was delivered in less than two breaths for the alien.

Garrus nodded. He was surprised to hear his clearance had gone up so high. He supposed the dubiously merited title of 'Reaper Advisor to the Hierarchy' had unforeseen perks.

"Please acknowledge _verbally,_ Officer," the salarian snipped, already looking into the middle distance and typing rapidly into a haptic board.

Garrus leaned back on a plastic railing, crossing his arms. "I understand the conditions," he said deliberately.

"I hope that wasn't too tricky for you. You seemed to struggle with answering your calls." The salarian chortled before leaning back in his chair and rolling his eyes at an unseen coworker.

Garrus ran his tongue over the tips of his teeth. The rational part of his mind knew this operation would roll out a lot more smoothly if he could resist the urge to put an STG handler in his place. But that part was quickly outvoted on days like this.

"My apologies," Garrus replied, his voice deceptively mild. "So tell me, is your division chief still Fari'id Skee? How's that old bastard doing these days?"

The salarian narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "I'm not at liberty to discuss STG personnel. Sir." The last word was tacked on reluctantly.

Garrus waved a hand in disinterest. "Well, the thing I'm _really_ wondering is why he's loosened up on his substance abuse policy." He shrugged and shook his head, feigning confusion. "He used to be a real hardass about it back when we investigated a Citadel candy racket together. Is he getting soft in his old age?"

On the screen, the agent began glancing side to side, one finger tapping his desk erratically. "I... don't know what policy you're referring to."

"No? He must allow his on-duty agents to consume stims during their shifts now, seeing as you're chewing red sand tabs at your desk." Garrus' tone remained conversational even as the salarian's eyes widened in panic.

"What are you insinuating, turian!" His voice had ratcheted up about an octave. "I'm not-"

"Hard to forget what that wrapper looks like when you've pulled hundreds of them out of the pockets of Darkstar dancers. But I guess you know better than me - if Fari'id won't care, it's not a problem leaving it on your desk, right?"

The agent whisked the garish purple sachet out of view. He coughed and straightened in his seat, eyes darting left and right.

"I thought that might be the case. Do you think now we could dispense with the 'salarian versus turian' clichés and proceed with a little cooperation?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, sir." The salarian struggled to keep his sudden fit of nervous fidgeting under control. "I'll, uh, bring up your information now, sir."

"My thanks." Garrus stretched his back, feeling his joints click. He watched Shepard through the scratched plexiglass of the cabin window, still slumped over her gear. For some reason his victory felt a little hollow knowing he wouldn't recount it to her later in triumph.

The twitchy agent began to pull holographic folders across his desk. "Sending you a planetary dossier now, Officer."

A file began downloading to his omnitool. Its size confirmed Garrus' fear that the STG had still not learned the value of brevity. "Give me the highlights," he said, flicking the file into the overflowing 'to read later' subsection of his mailbox.

The salarian nodded eagerly, both sets of eyelids blinking. "Of course, sir. Anything you like." He fingered the drawer to his desk nervously. "You're en route to a planet probably known to you as Kiprin's Burden," he continued, raising a satellite image of a nondescript reddish planet into 3-D.

Garrus glanced it over, recognising the distinctive swirling duststorms. "I've heard of it. A turian expedition mapped it in the Exploration Age. It's a dud, right? Too much sulfur in the atmosphere?"

The agent nodded again. "Originally, the atmosphere was 17% sulfurous gases and uninhabitable to all known complex life. Salarian astrocartographers didn't bother to assign it a name, only a number; 17-4227-651908."

There was a moment's pause. "I'll stick with Kiprin's Burden, I think," Garrus replied.

The salarian cleared his throat with a tinny echo. "Yes, of course. About twenty years ago, the Kiprin star changed density as it entered its final life stages, causing the detachment of several metal-rich asteroids from a belt on the outer reaches of the system. Subsequently, the asteroids entered the nearby orbit of Kiprin's Burden. Several companies and private contractors have since financed the terraforming of the atmosphere, making it... relatively habitable. The small planetside town is used primarily as a staging ground for the mining operations conducted on the asteroid surfaces."

"Alright." Garrus wandered over to the porthole and began absently carving the first glyph of his name into the thick plastic with the tip of a talon. "What about the Cerberus forces groundside? Can we expect heavy resistance?"

The salarian traced the outside of his mouth with the tip of his tongue, a nervous idiosyncrasy Garrus had seen often in Dr. Solus when left alone in close proximity with Grunt. "Unfortunately, the STG has limited information on planetside activities. We, uh, didn't deem it a prudent investment."

He sighed. "Then just give me the location of their operations. Where are they keeping the hostages? We'll make up the rest as we go."

"I'm afraid I don't have that information," the agent said in a quick, small voice.

Garrus back straightened like he'd been pulled by a string. "What?"

"We don't -" He paused to lick his lips again. "We don't know where they are."

"There was a tracker attached to their ship." he said in measured tones.

"When their ship descended into low orbit, we lost communication – our contact on the ground, he couldn't reestablish -"

A rattling thud rang out in the narrow stairwell as Garrus slammed a fist on the window frame. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shepard's head jerk to attention. "So... what are you trying to tell me?" he asked in a low voice, straining to keep his voice level. "That we're dropping in blind? That the hostages could be anywhere from here to the Veil by now?"

The salarian visibly recoiled. "It's- it's just what it says on the screen!" he bleated. "I'm just a communicator, I don't know how this stuff gets handled!"

"Then you'd better find someone who knows something before I call the Sur'Kesh Nationalist Crimes Bureau and you spend the rest of your brief and miserable life in a cell, you hopped-up little prick -"

"What's going on here?" Shepard interjected as the door rattled closed behind her.

"They've lost the tracker. They've got no intel groundside. We might as well be dropping into the damn Void for all they can help us," he snarled, beginning to pace. His mind was suddenly flooded with images of the blood-stained floors beneath Cerberus torture devices on Pragia. It was no great leap to imagine his sister strapped into one of those chairs. Her face rose up towards him, contorted and screaming. He suddenly felt short of breath.

Shepard seemed to connect the dots within moments, and she opened up a portal into the vidlink. "STG Intelligence Division, I'll assume?" she asked the now quivering salarian.

"Commander Shepard? _The_ Commander Shepard?" The look of fear slackened, and he leaned forward into the camera. "Wow. The vids make you look shorter."

"Only when the channel doesn't like me. What's your name?"

He seemed taken aback. "Jareet," he ventured nervously.

"Alright, Jareet. What's the Cerberus story in this sector?"

"Are you listening or not?" Garrus interrupted angrily, coming to a standstill. "They've got nothing! We're getting the scraps they've swept out from under the table because they're too incompetent to keep a single tracker in range!" He kicked his bag clear across the tiny space, his heat sinks clanking loudly.

"I'll be the judge of that," Shepard replied calmly. There was a hard edge lining her words that almost triggered the last die-hard shred of turian obedience he had left. She stared him straight in the eye until he was forced to look away, a frustrated hum starting in his chest.

She put her hands on her hips and returned her attention to the vidlink. "So," she said, and instantly all traces of steel in her face were gone. "Cerberus loves the smell of money. Is this a trade planet?"

"Kiprin's Burden. Yes, an asteroid mining planet." Jareet said eagerly, smiling. Any other day Garrus would have been amused by Shepard working over such an easy dupe. Today, he felt nothing but revolt at the simpering display. It seemed like everyone in the universe except him was queueing up to fall at Shepard's feet.

"Interesting." She returned the smile, easy and disarming. "What can you tell me about the big players dirtside? Who's controlling the money?"

Garrus shook his head, surpressing a growl. "That's not going to tell us which damn door to kick down, Shepard! Solanna will be scuttled into a desert hole somewhere before we finish even a prelimary recon. We need schematics and latitudes of the Cerberus facilities and we need them _now._" He moved to face the Commander front on, chin raising defiantly. "Call Liara."

Shepard muted the feed before shaking her head. "No."

"Shepard-"

"No."

Garrus felt his chest tighten. His sister's face seemed seared onto his mind's eye, smoking at the edges. _It's my fault if she dies here_, his thoughts chanted in a loop. He took a step forward, not knowing what he was doing but feeling compelled. Anything to stop being helpless. "I'll do it if you won't." He swallowed, watching Shepard meet his gaze, and realised he _would_ do it, even if the traces of an orthodox turian in him were horrified at the thought.

"No, you won't," she said mildly. Her eyes had a familiar look in them; Garrus realised he usually saw it turned on an uncooperative informant.

"Shepard, it's my sister, damn it- " he began desperately.

"For three reasons," she continued as though he hadn't spoken. "One; I doubt she'd have any more intel than STG on a tiny rock in a backwater system. She has no agents in play here; as soon as I had our coordinates, I checked. Why would the Broker have had cause to monitor a place like this too closely? And you know as well as I do that we can't risk details of the mission becoming public knowledge on the Normandy."

He turned his back to her and put a hand either side of the porthole, leaning forward and trying hard not to grind his teeth together. He heard her moving closer.

"Two; we could well be touching down on a planet that could now be entirely in Cerberus' pocket. A giant early warning system. We go in guns blazing, they cut their losses and all we find are empty warehouses and warm corpses." His talons curled into the wall. She continued, unfazed. "The Illusive Man brought hostages here for a reason. He's been trying to pilfer turian ships for weeks. He's got something out here he needs them for. Something he wants to protect."

"What the hell makes you so sure of that? For all we know he just thought this place was far enough out of the way to stash them," he accused. Her reflection watched him from over a shoulder.

"Because I spoke with Miranda while you were cuddling that charming drell. Cerberus has about a dozen boltholes between here and where they were lifted, all of which would have been far more secure and protected. They're on this rock for a reason. Which means we need to find out what and put a stop to it, which _means_ the circumspect approach until we know what we're dealing with."

He felt his temper spike, and whirled to face her. "Like hell I'm asking polite questions around town while my sister is tortured by Cerberus maniacs!" he snapped, putting a finger violently in her face.

In a split second, he was on the ground, a knee in the small of his back and an arm twisting up towards his cuff. His visor tumbled off with a clatter. He groaned in pain as his injured mandible was pushed into the filthy beige floor. "And the third reason, you son of a bitch," she ground out between clenched teeth somewhere over his head. "Is that I'm your Commander, and when I issue an order I expect my subordinates to follow. So unless you want to fly solo on the rescue op for your own sister, you'll start remembering who calls the shots here. Understood?"

He closed his eyes, letting his arms slump. He knew she was right. They had no knowledge of the terrain, no intel, and no backup. But that didn't make Solanna's screams any less painful to imagine.

She stood, releasing the grip she had on his wrist. He sat up, retrieving his visor and readjusting it on his face. His mandible throbbed angrily. After a moment, Shepard stuck out a hand to help him up. He looked up into her face. She looked solemn bar a muscle jumping slightly in her jaw.

"If you think getting your sister out of here safe and sound isn't my top priority, then you're dead wrong, Garrus," she said as she pulled him to his feet. "But I hope you knew that already." Her expression softened slightly with concern.

_Ah_, he thought as their gaze met clearly for the first time in weeks._ For a moment there_ _I'd forgotten. She's better at this than I am._ The pain in his jaw faded into nothing.

Then he heard an obnoxious, nasal snickering down his earpiece. The salarian had leaned back in his chair and casually folded his arms behind his head. "That was quite a show, Officer Vakarian. Should I call Skee over in case there's a round two?" he asked with a smirk.

Garrus punched the disconnect on the feed. He recovered his kit without meeting Shepard's eyes, but he could feel her stare burning on his back as he pulled the cabin door open with a thump.


	5. Chapter 5

"Damn key," the salarian grumbled as he gave the lock another futile swipe. Shepard watched a curling strip of paint on the door bobble as he mashed the card into the reader. "Need to get the chip replaced - ah, there." He pushed the door open with a shoulder, and it groaned loudly in protest.

"Come in, come in." He held the door wide as the auto-triggered lights began flickering on. "It's not much, I'm afraid."

'Not much' felt like a bold understatement to Shepard. Stacks of ancient tech were balanced in precarious columns on every available surface, including most of the floor. She could spot omnitools, vehicle nav modules, even a few milspec targeting systems. All models that had been obsolete at least ten years before she'd been born. The smell of dust and rusting battery cases was all-pervasive. Two camp beds had been erected in a hastily cleared area near the room's only window. The blinds drawn over the pane seemed decorative only, as the layer of fine red dirt coating the outside made it as transparent as her hand.

"Well, its got a bathroom that works, for the most part. It was originally a lab, so the shower was for chemical emergencies. Just don't expect the Grondian Falls."

Shepard slung her kit with practiced ease under one of the beds. "It'll be fine."

The salarian wrung the abused key between his hands. "I'd offer something better than a storeroom, but this town only has one hotel. I didn't think you'd want to risk exposure -" he continued nervously.

"It's fine. We've both slept in worse." Garrus walked past and dumped his gear on the other bed. A pile of antique physical keyboards cascaded off a nearby desk onto his pillow. Shepard winced as he brushed them carelessly to the floor, hundreds of plastic keys clacking. So he still wasn't in the most sociable of moods.

"Oh." The salarian looked from Garrus to the Commander, and back again. "I could try and organise a double, if you'd prefer."

Shepard held up a hand, heat shooting up her neck. Damn salarians and their complete ignorance of social cues. "That won't be necessary. Let's just start the debrief."

"Agreed." Their guide maneuvered himself to the middle of the room and tried to look composed with one foot either side of a teetering mound of datapads. A flick of his omnitool had a holo topographic map rising out of his forearm.

"Beautiful Boomtown of Kiprin's Burden. I don't know how much Jareet told you, but you've come to the gutter drain of the galaxy here. The air is foul, there are dust storms more often than sunrises, and temperatures range between hot and death by heatstroke. The handful of permanent residents hate this place as much as the transitory workers. There are only two upsides; the asteroids are making a lot of people very rich, and there hasn't been a Reaper sighted in the entire system. I figure even they think this place is worthless."

Shepard sat on the edge of her cot and steepled her hands between her knees. "That'll change if we can't stop them, I guarantee it," she said heavily.

"Well." The salarian smiled at her around the edge of his map. "That's your department, Commander. I'm not selling the farm while we've got you leading the charge."

She returned the smile as best she could.

"Anyway, STG started maintaining a presence here about six Cit-standard months ago. At the moment our operation is, uh, limited. I'm the only agent on the ground right now and my budget is outstripped by Presidium menu prices. Won't I be glad to see the back of this place -"

"Enough of this," Garrus interrupted from a spot next to the window, tone grating with impatience. "Look... what did you say your name was?"

The salarian's eyes narrowed as he withdrew his map with a sharp tap. "Ferdin."

"Ferdin, we're not here because we're interested in the trials of your backwater posting. We're here for Cerberus." Garrus started rummaging through the pockets of his bag, pulling out a small omni drive and tossing it to the operative. "All we need from you is any intel you've collected on Cerberus in this hellhole, and then you need to get out of our way."

Shepard stood with a mental sigh, preparing for another diplomatic battle. Ferdin, however, seemed to be made of stronger stuff than his office counterpart. He stepped over the datapad mound, mouth a tight line.

"Then I'll save you some time. There's none. No data on Cerberus activities has ever been recorded here." He neatly tossed the holo drive back onto Garrus' kit. "All you've got is Boomtown, or thousands of kilometres of desert. If you want to start looking for evidence of Cerberus in the latter, be my guest." He waved an arm towards the dirt-caked window. "If not, then your only lead is somewhere in my backwater post."

Garrus seemed momentarily without an answer, a rare and enjoyable sight for Shepard. He glanced at her as though for backup, to which she only raised her eyebrows in a distinct 'you're on your own'.

He turned back to the agent, obviously not content to back down. "And what can you tell me about the ship that landed here? Why the hell did you lose sight of the tracker?"

Ferdin held up his hands. "Hey, that's not on me. The entire town has had major electrical disturbances for weeks now. I think it's the dust storms. Your bogey came down right in the thick of one of them. They might as well have leapt into subspace for all I'd have been able to track a single ship in that."

"Perfect cover." Shepard murmured.

"And the perfect barrier to prevent anyone stumbling across them unintentionally," Ferdin added. "No one ventures outside Boomtown without a lot of gear and a very good reason. Hell, I'm still having trouble believing they're really here. I've combed sat feeds from all over this planet for months now looking for batarian pirate LZs, and gotten nothing for the trouble but storms, rocks, and a lot of boredom."

Garrus shook his head. "If they're here, they can be found. Not even Cerberus can operate completely invisibly. They need raw materials, power, transport. Someone here has to know something."

"We just need to find the weak link in the chain." Shepard concluded. She turned to Ferdin. "That's where we'll need your help. Can you think of any possible places to start? Someone well-connected we could lean on?"

The agent crossed his arms, tapping his fingers absently on his forearm. "Hmm. Maybe one. I've got no idea how much she knows, but... there's an asari by the name of Yvera. She's a freelance surveyor who takes contracts to prospect new claims on the asteroids. She's worked for almost every company trading on the planet. If one of them has some side business they shouldn't, then she's bound to have caught a whiff." Ferdin suddenly turned to Garrus with a wide, smug grin. "And you're in luck. I've heard she _loves_ turians."

The turian sighed. Shepard felt her gut tighten a little at Ferdin's unknowingly poor choice of words. She glanced at Garrus, but he didn't seem disturbed. _Maybe he's forgotten about it_, she reasoned with what she knew was futile hope.

"Where can we find her?" Garrus asked.

"Right now? Don't you want to settle in first -"

"The sooner we start asking questions, the sooner we... do what we came here to do." He glanced at Shepard, and she nodded, understanding his meaning. They would do it her way. They could begin the hunt proper.

Ferdin's brow ridge raised. "If you say so." He checked the clock on his omnitool. "About now she's probably in the Cantina, the upmarket bar in town. It's where the company drones usually try to dull the pain at the end of the day."

"Is there a chance we'll be recognised?" Shepard touched the insignia on her armour's chestplate.

The salarian shrugged. "You're famous even out here, but our news feeds are spotty at best. Just don't wear that armour you're always wearing in the vids, maybe change that - what's it called, on top of your head? Hair? Don't stare too many people in the eye and you should be fine. As for your friend, well, all turians look alike to me."

"What a coincidence, just like all salarians to me," Garrus shot back without looking at them, already pulling his civilian clothes out of the cavity of his kitbag.

Ferdin smiled at Shepard rather wickedly before retreating back across the minefield of junked equipment. "I'll be in touch. Oh, almost forgot." He turned at the door and threw the battered keycard to Shepard, who caught it with one hand. "Don't lose that. Good luck, Commander." He pulled the door closed behind him with a obnoxious creak.

Shepard pocketed the key with a smile. She was glad that the STG had unwittingly left a competent agent in this dead end assignment. She had a feeling they would need his help searching for their needle in a haystack.

There was a rustle behind her. "Here's the deal," came Garrus' voice over her shoulder, interrupting her thoughts. She turned to see him perched on the edge of the flimsy cot, unstrapping his shin plates. "Whatever we do here, we do to find Solanna. No side objectives, no new parameters." His armour hit the linoleum with a clunk. "As long as this is a search and rescue, then we'll do it your way."

Shepard breathed a little easier for the first time since they'd disembarked. Too many years as a squad commander told her that even the best laid plans went awry when the whole team wasn't pulling in the same direction, and no amount of discipline saved those missions. "We're getting her back, Vakarian. You've got my word."

He seemed to consider this for a moment, then reached out a hand in a distinctly human gesture. Shepard took his arm in a soldier's grip. If a truce was the best they could do for now, she'd take it gladly.

She pulled her kit back onto the bed and began scavenging through the weaponry and tools for a set of clothes that wouldn't immediately betray her as military. She frowned as she burrowed deeper, past rattling heatsinks and cans of medigel. The pickings were slim, to say the least. At last, a sadly neglected but suitable outfit appeared, and she emancipated the clothes from the bottom of her bag. A few smears of oil here and there wouldn't draw too much attention, she hoped.

When she stood back and held up the shirt for inspection, she realised Garrus had already shed his armour and was busy peeling off his bodysuit. A question about the visibility of the grease marks died on her lips. She averted her eyes, overcome with a strange, discomforting shyness. It was hardly the first time they'd seen each other naked; dressing wounds in the field left little room for modesty. But something about their cramped quarters, their isolation from the Normandy and her recent drunken confessions had her awareness of his proximity pinging off the charts. Feeling thoroughly stupid, she gathered up her street clothes and made for the bathroom.

Investigating the tiny space, she discovered a single bare bulb above a cracked sink. _Porcelain, even. This place is a history museum_, she mused. There was a feeling of disconnection about the planet to Shepard, like it had somehow been fumbled and dropped out of modern galactic life. She clicked out the joins on her chestplate and lifted it over her head, glancing at her forearm. Even her state of the art omnitool was awash with static. They were isolated from the rest of civilisation in every sense. Pulling off her undersuit and stepping into the simple button-up and pants, she wondered if she could covertly get a message to Tali. The Normandy had drifted long out of point-to-point range, and she had the feeling her optimistic promise of an overnight return was going to be broken.

She turned the tap and watched the rusty water circle the drain until it flowed clear. The thought of being too long away was like an itch on the roof of her mouth. She was less than useless out here if something happened to them.

"Shepard." His voice came from right outside the door.

She splashed her face a few times. "Just a sec," she called. She struggled to put her concerns aside, gripping the sink. Whatever anxiety she felt about leaving the Normandy could be nothing compared to what Garrus felt right now. She'd made a promise, and like hell she was sitting shipside while the Illusive Man terrorised the family of her best mate, whatever the state of their friendship lately. It was here she was needed.

When she pulled open the door, her cloudy, meandering thoughts came to a screeching halt. She swallowed. She could probably count on one hand the times she'd seen him without armour, but never like this. Black fabric and sharp, tailored lines. Dark blue stripes over his shoulder and down his chest matched his clan markings, casting subtle reflections as he turned to face her. He was a lithe, dangerous shape in silhouette. Even in the dull storeroom lighting, he looked like he'd been transplanted directly from a nightclub in Illium's wealthiest district.

"You ready to move?" he asked vaguely, slipping his visor into place and touching a few buttons.

"Uh -" She dragged her eyes from the way the sleek material stretched over his shoulders. "I'm not sure. Suddenly I feel a little underdressed."

"This?" He adjusted his collar with a finger under the cuff. "Dr. Michel paid for it when I was on the Citadel a few months ago. I told her it was wasted on me, but - " He spread his arms slightly. "She insisted."

_I bet she did._ Shepard smoothed down the front of her cheap, wrinkled blouse, and was confronted with an alien emotion; wishing she'd packed a skirt.

"It looks..." _Amazing. Brilliant. I'd give you the launch codes for my ship right now if you asked._ "Expensive. You'll be earmarked for a few muggings later."

"They might be good stress relief." He averted his eyes slightly and fingered the grip on his sidearm. "You know, I feel a little ridiculous in anything other than armour these days. What with my 'natural beauty' and all." He ran a hand over the rough, ragged section on the right side of his face.

Shepard just barely resisted rolling her eyes at the irony. "You don't look ridiculous, Garrus. You might even qualify as attractive to a species other than krogan for once."

"That good, huh?" He tossed her Carnifex over, which she tucked into her waistband. "Seems money really can buy anything."

"Well, let's not get drastic. You're still turian after all," Shepard said with regret, pulling open the creaking door. He passed her with a sardonic tilt of the head, a glimmer of their old banter passing between them. Her hand reached out for his forearm without thinking, stopping him in his tracks.

"Seriously though. You look good. You've always looked good." A flutter of something unknowable stirred in Shepard's stomach as he met her eyes.

To her relief, his mandibles parted in a smile. "Good enough for a dance with a drunk asari?"

She returned the grin. "Let's go and find out."

* * *

><p>Finding the Cantina had proven more difficult than finding a bar in a four-street town should have been. The buildings in Boomtown were connected by a labyrinth of makeshift corridors to avoid venturing out while a duststorm was raging, which Shepard had a feeling was more often than not. The corridor walls were layered floor to ceiling with advertisements but otherwise pre-fab and generic, and thus almost impossible to tell apart. They had doubled back once without realising it before finally stumbling over a slurring office worker and extracting directions. The lack of signage or any other kind of local infrastructure gave her some idea of how little the Citadel had influence here. Boomtown appeared to govern itself.<p>

Walking into the Cantina did not dispel the notion. If this was the 'upmarket' bar, she wanted to see what Ferdin called a dive. It appeared to be two demountable buildings that had been crudely sliced open and joined, like a botch repair job on a pipeline. Plastered cracks were opening along the seam, most of which had been abandoned to destiny. The island bar squatting in the centre of the dim room was covered in scuffs and one or two claw marks. Electronic jazz filtered through unseen speakers, the smooth beats glitching slightly whenever the krogan barman plunked down a drink with a little too much enthusiasm. Low, pulsed lighting appeared to be attempting to recreate the fashionable atmosphere of the Citadel clubs, but the illusion was shattered as the pulses turned to erratic flashes. The krogan grunted in annoyance and thumped a wall behind him, returning the lights to their schedule. Shepard was overwhelmed with the impression of a place thrown up in a hurry and never expected to last; a joint used by everyone and valued by no one.

Scattered on the low settees and propping up the bar were a motley assortment of tired faces and cheap suits. No one seemed to pay the newcomers hovering in the doorway much attention, too busy listlessly shuffling their alcohol or slouching deep in their chairs, heads thrown back in exhaustion.

"Thoughts?" she murmured. She might be able to analyse a battlefield in a heartbeat, but no one could read a crowded room like a detective.

He folded his arms, leaning closer to speak near her ear. "Workers, mostly white collar. Underpaid and overworked - I'd say the real money drinks elsewhere. One or two bodyguards for the execs, but no career criminals. Mercs here on contracted stints, probably."

"Anything that says Cerberus?" she asked, eyes narrowed as she scanned the inhabitants for telltale signs of professional soldiers.

"Nothing," he whispered, sighing in frustration.

Shepard clucked her tongue. "Not a surprise." She surreptitiously slipped on the pair of spectacles she'd bought earlier from a vending machine in one of the interminable corridors. "Any reporters?"

"Not that I can see. If they're here, they're blending well."

"Let's not give them a reason to spring out of hiding," she muttered grimly.

They began threading their way to the bar. As soon as Garrus was out of the shadows, the effect was immediate. Almost every head picked up, some with interest, some with wariness. Shepard realised he was probably wearing the priciest thing in the room. She heard a swell of murmurs follow in their wake, mostly female.

They had agreed that he should take the lead, lessening the chance of Shepard being recognised. As she tailed him with head down, she realised they needn't have worried. No one in the room was looking at her.

Garrus reached the bar and signaled the tender over. The krogan's massive brow creased in amusement when he saw who was hailing him, and he sauntered over with a shake of his head.

"Whose boat did'ya fall off? Hope you weren't expecting the Dark Star in here, kid." The barman flipped a ragged towel over his shoulder, chuckling at his own humour.

"I'm looking for an asari called Yvera. You heard of her?"

The jocular attitude hardened in an instant. "And who the hell are you, looking for Yve? You tryin' to bother her?"

Garrus paused only briefly before replying. "Oh, not at all, sir." He laced his hands together and tilted his weight onto the bar, glancing left and right and smiling conspiratorily. " Actually, I'm the operations manager for Pureshot Corporations. You might have heard of them, Noveria-based? I was supposed to meet Yvera before my damn flight got delayed by the duststorm earlier." He gave an exasperated laugh. "I was hoping I could apologise by buying her a drink." His tone was the perfect mix of direct and disdainful. He sounded exactly like a high-powered executive trying to be polite to backwater yokels.

Luckily, the barman was too dull-witted to see through either layer of disguise. He nodded companionably, picking up a glass to polish. "Yeah, the storms'll kill ya out here. Reminds me of Tuchanka on its best days. Yve is over there somewhere." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, already moving towards a batarian tapping the bar.

Shepard fell into step behind him as they followed the direction pointed out, an appropriately humble secretary to his business-like stride. "Pureshot?" she said out of the corner of her mouth, keeping her head lowered.

"Name of my first gun," he muttered. Shepard chuckled towards the carpet.

The back of the bar was lined with dim, low-walled booths, their couches arranged in semi-circles. Again, there was the smack of the cosmopolitan about the decor that didn't stand up to more than a moment's scrutiny. The seat covers were fraying over the corners, tables were covered with an easy clean plastic shield. Even the public terminal screens embedded along the wall were flickering.

Above one booth, clouds of fragant smoke lingered in a fog. As they approached the inhabitant from behind, Shepard caught the distinctive scent of clove cigarettes. It was a human vice that many asari had taken to as a fashion statement, despite having little effect on their biology. She tapped Garrus on the arm but he ignored her, walking straight past the booth as though not in the least interested in its contents. Her brow furrowed as she followed dutifully. He took up a position at the bar, not facing the booths but in full view of whoever sat along the back wall.

"Hey, I think you overshot the target," she said quietly as she slid onto a stool.

"Trust me," he replied calmly, flicking through the autoserve dextro menu and making a selection. The machine whirred, raising a full glass through a hatch that opened in the countertop. He leaned one side up against the bar, crossing his ankles and sipping his drink with bored disinterest. Shepard followed suit with the levo menu, using the pretense of dropping her straw to take a look at her surroundings. There was a gaggle of female office workers over Garrus' shoulder who were shooting him glances over their cocktails and intermittently dissolving into giggles. They seemed to be trying to goad one of their group into approaching. Next to them, an argument was developing between a pair of quarians; the woman was outright ignoring her date in favour of staring openly at the turian. The man's posture was sullen as he sunk back into a couch, looking defeated.

"Anything interesting?" Garrus asked, stirring his drink lazily.

Shepard reseated herself and took a belt of her own, something fruity and too sweet. "Good news. If the asari doesn't talk, we can always put you on the street corner and gather intel the old-fashioned way."

"If my academy-age self could hear that, he'd be thrilled. And terrified."

"And what about jaded and ancient Garrus?" Shepard asked.

"Just terrified." He grinned over his liquor.

Shepard rolled her eyes. "Yeah, you seem it. I know full well that you didn't always need your badge and gun to get a female to talk to you."

"Once, maybe," he corrected, not quite meeting her eyes.

"Still," she repeated firmly.

He met her gaze after a few moments. His expression changed to something a little more somber. "Shepard, we need to talk-"

"Not now. Show time," she interrupted, gulping down the rest of her drink in haste. Privately, she thanked the asari currently stumbling their way for her timing. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear what he had been about to say.

Garrus straightened. He held his hand under the counter and made their combat signal to indicate he was taking point. Shepard nodded.

The asari approached them in a waft of pungent clove smoke. Her flowery perfume did little to mask the acrid smell of cigarettes and industrial soot. A tight, restrictive dress had seen better days but still looked out of place against the shabby Cantina backdrop. She reminded Shepard instantly of the female marines at an Alliance ball; trying desperately to convince onlookers that they were delicate, feminine lilies for one night despite their hard muscles and sunburns.

"So are you two here on business, or pleasure?" she said with apparent disinterest, coming up to the bar on Shepard's side and touching a selection on the autoserve. Her eyes kept sliding sideways to Garrus.

"Business, of course." Garrus took a long sip, letting his eyes wander briefly down the asari's body. "I don't see myself coming here for pleasure."

"Me neither. I can't wait to be off this rock." She sighed heavily. "Give me the Reapers any day if it means I can have the Citadel clubs back. There is _no_ scene here worth my time."

"Maybe I can help make it worthwhile," Garrus replied, putting his glass down. He reached over Shepard and covered the payment scanner with a hand just as the asari was moving the chip embedded in her wrist towards the machine. "I'll pay for your drink if you tell me your name." His voice had turned languid and playful.

Shepard kept her head down, struggling not to scoff. The asari giggled.

"Yvera." She drew the syllables of her name out. "And you are?" she asked coyly.

"Dimark." He stood and pulled up the hem of a glove, waving his hand over the counter. The autoserve beeped.

"And this is your... girlfriend?" she said, gesturing at Shepard, barely sparing her a glance.

He laughed dismissively. "My assistant. I picked her up on Illium."

"Oh?" The subtext of that statement did not seem to be lost on the asari. "One of _those_ assistants."

"Mm. Humans aren't my taste, so to speak," he said pointedly.

She picked up her drink and sauntered to his side. They began exchanging flirtations that bordered on comically absurd to Shepard, but Yvera seemed to be eating it up. It wasn't long before she took his arm and pulled him back towards her booth, disappearing into the low lighting and lingering smoke. Shepard watched them go with a strange taste in her mouth that she was pretty sure wasn't just the week old fruit in her cocktail. From her vantage point, she could still hear the rumble of Garrus' laughter and the playful rebukes of the asari, amidst peals of drunken giggles. She slipped off her stool. Somehow, sitting around like an obedient slave no longer seemed appealing.

She walked back around to the front, well out of view and earshot of the booths. She tapped two fingers on the bar, calling the krogan over. To hell with the risk of exposure, she needed a real drink.

As the barman poured her a shot of Sur'kesh sour malt, there was a sudden, dark pang behind her eyes. Pain suddenly dumped over her senses like a bucket of water thrown on her head. Every throb of her heartbeat became a streak of lightning, illuminating the forest. The boy stood on a high hill, and watched as drips of poison fell out of the mouths of the ghosts. They were laughing at her again.

_God, please, not now_, she begged the shady figures. Her head felt like it was about to crack open at the seams. _Not here. Torment me later. _

There was a tap on her shoulder, and the forest fell away into mist. Her hand jerked for her gun, the other fist clenching over the shot glass like a claw.

A heavyset batarian was staring at her, his four eyes unblinking. She forced herself to relax, remembering that indentured servants usually didn't pull Carnifexes out of their pants at the drop of a hat. "You need a hand?" she ventured, as he continued to stand and stare impassively.

"Have you got elcor family?" he said abruptly, after a minute of silence.

Shepard twisted on her stool, completely nonplussed. "Uh-"

"You said 'Dekuuna' just then." He scratched a growth on his chin. "It's Reaper country now."

Shepard looked down into the dregs of her liquor. An unfamiliar, spectacled reflection looked back. "No. I haven't got family there."

"Be glad, then." He started walking away, gait stilted with a limp. "Come with me, Commander."

Shepard's heartrate shot up on his last word. She looked back over to the booths, but there was no sign of Garrus emerging any time soon. She stood, waving her chip over the scanner for the drink, and made some fast calculations. If she pulled a weapon and blew their cover now, they could be alerting the active cells on Kiprin's Burden before they'd gotten even a toehold on Solanna's whereabouts. Then again, the batarian could be Cerberus and it was all for naught anyway. He wasn't a typical agent for the Illusive Man, but who knew how he recruited these days.

The batarian was waiting patiently near the door, watching her. She couldn't spot a weapon and she couldn't hear backup moving into position. With one last glance at the back of the bar, she decided to risk it.

He silently gestured outside as she approached. She pulled the gun tucked under her shirt a little freer as he stepped through in front.

There was a bubbled, transparent force field arched out over the doors as a shield against the dust and polluted air. At that moment it was doing double duty as a guard against the rain, which had begun to pour down in thick, slightly greenish sheets. Despite the shield and the dry, recycled air blowing through the doors of the Cantina, she could smell sulfur.

"It's acid rain." There was a figure just beyond the throw of light from the bar, facing out into the motley jumble of colony buildings.

Shepard glanced left and right. No drawn muzzles in ambush. Journalists, then? Undercover C-Sec?

"That rain'll burn a hole right through your skin." The figure turned. "For all our brains, nature'll still fry us up for dinner whenever the bitch wants."

A woman about her mother's age stepped into the light. She had brown, wind-leathered skin and thick black hair shot through with grey. A rash of small scars over her forehead and down one cheek told Shepard she'd had history with a shrapnel explosion. When she smiled, her teeth shone gleaming white. "Good'ta meet ya, friend." A hand came towards her.

Shepard took it cautiously. "Who are you? Do you... know who I am?"

The woman moved to a low bench under a scrolling ad for Lingual Language Mods. The batarian took her arm and guided her to the seat carefully. A heavy sigh exhaled through her nose. "I'm Maggie. You're Commander Shepard, and you're trying to stop the Reapers. Sound about right?"

"How did you-"

Maggie tapped an ear. "We were sitting near you and that turian boy. You learn to remember voices when other parts of you don't work, and you're about the only voice I hear on the feeds these days." For the first time, Shepard noticed that her eyes were focused into the middle distance, aimlessly sliding left and right.

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling suddenly very tired. So much for undercover. "That's about right."

"Well, Aborigines return to the dirt they was born on to die. And I ain't dead yet, so you better save Australia for me. You're the only shot I got'a ever seeing Gilgandra again. So to speak." Another thousand watt smile that didn't quite reach the shifting, blinking eyes.

Shepard wished she could say something heroic. Definitive. Absolutely, it's all under control.

"I'll do my best." So empty and trite, but it was all she could offer that still sounded like the truth. "I'm sorry, Maggie."

"Don't be sorry," she said with a wave of a hand. "They're here now. Nothing you can do about that except try. But that's not why I had Bezerick get you out here." The Aboriginal leaned foward, resting elbows on knees. "I need your help, Commander."


End file.
